Below are selected highlights from Thursday afternoon’s press conference ahead of Town facing Wigan on Saturday lunchtime. You can find the full audio above or in your We Are Terriers podcast feed.
Lee Grant
Your task was not made easier by the sickness bug in the camp. How are the few that had it and has anybody else got it?
They seem to be okay, and we’ve had a couple of them back on the grass today, which is good. Touch wood, it doesn’t appear like we’ve got anybody else under the weather right now. But obviously we know these things aren’t linear, necessarily, and that, you know, the next 24 hours might change that picture. So let’s just see how we go.
We’ve got Lynden [Gooch] back on the grass today. Ruben [Roosken] is a little bit behind Lynden in terms of where they’re both at and their trajectories of when and how long they’ve been ill for, but both moving in the right direction.
Same for Rads (Radinio Balker) — he had probably maybe managed to miss out on some of it, because he managed to get himself to the hotel with us and on the trip for Northampton, but certainly wasn’t feeling great and wasn’t involved in a great deal of the preparations because of how he felt, but h’s on the grass today. So again, a positive,
And rest of the squad, how are you looking?
Yeah, we’re OK. We’re all right.
It’s nice, actually, to welcome back a couple of faces as well that we’ve not had with us because they’ve been back with their parent clubs in terms of taking care of their rehab. So Will Alves is back in the building today, which was really good, and Zeppi Redmond the same — back in the building.
So it’s great to have them back in and around it, but of course, it’s going to be a little while before we see them back and on the pitch, available for squad selection, but it’s nice to have them back in and around the building.
There was a lot of reaction this week, Lee after the draw against Northampton….Alfie May’s name comes up again. What does he need to do to be in contention from the start?
Alfie’s doing everything he needs to do right now. The way Alfie’s trained over the last week or so, he’s been excellent, and of course…look, coming out of the team in the fashion he did (getting suspended), Alfie’s frustrated and all of us the same, missing an important player for three three games.
That was not ideal, of course, but his response has been good in training. I’ve really enjoyed Alfie in the past week or so. Alfie’s doing the right things in terms of his attitude, in terms of his application, so I don’t have any worries about Alfie and his readiness to step in when required.
Sometimes that could be late on in the game, kind of like with four minutes to go, and the criticism will be: ‘Lee, how would you affect a game in that in that time?’
Well, it’s up for every player, regardless of whether they start the game, whether they finish the game, during the time they’re given, to give as much impact as they can. Now, I think for any player, having less minutes will always be frustrating. But of course, we always have to weigh up the opposition, the game dynamic, what we feel like we need on the pitch at that specific point in time, and that will always be the case. We’ll always make those calls in the moment with and in relation to who we’re playing and what’s happening at that specific time.
Now, as I say, for Alfie specifically, would Alfie prefer more minutes to impact the game than 10 minutes? I’m pretty sure if you ask Alfie, the answer would be yes.
Can my reflection be — especially if we don’t get the winner that I expect us to get — can my reflection be with Harry Hindsight, different? Of course, absolutely, absolutely, because we know the qualities Alfie May has.
Now, it’s not just Alfie May. So whenever a result doesn’t end in the way that you want it to, or performance doesn’t quite get to the level that you want it to, of course, you have to reflect and always look and say, ‘well, perhaps if we we’ve made this adjustment, or perhaps if the adjustment that we made here at this specific time was was different, would that made a different impact?’ And the answer can be, well, possibly, maybe. But there’s always a reason and a justification for every decision we make in terms of substitution, on the pitch, off the pitch, start the game, finish the game. There’s always a really clear justification. We always make those justifications clear to the players as well.
That will always be the case, and like I say, in terms of Alfie and his readiness and what he needs to do: keep working really hard, train the way he’s trained today, which is impeccable, and that leaves him in a great position of when that start comes around.
Sean Roughan
Have had to be patient for your chance in the side this season - frustrating?
Yeah, it’s probably been the toughest part in my career — obviously, it’s still a short career — but it’s been very tough going in day in, day out, training and as a football you want to play games, and I’ve been able to do that over the last month.
It’s been tough, but it was good to play against Lincoln, and then again on Tuesday, going forward and get the fitness back up.
How do you how do you deal with that mentally if you are not in the side?
Look, it’s tough, but you’ve got to look at the bigger picture. Obviously, the manager has a tough job, he has to pick 11 players, and I’m up against Ruben and Ruben has done well, so had to just bide my time a little bit.
There’s days where you think you’re hard done by, but I think you’ve got to just remind yourself how lucky are in the position you’re in, because a lot of people would love to be in the position I am. So you’ve kind of just got to remind yourself and try and put a smile on your face and keep going, because there will be times when you’re out of team and times you’re going to be playing, so you’ve got to wait for your moment and jump on it when you can.
How do you change what’s been happening, where you have been conceding quite a few goals?
Just probably be more aggressive. I put it down to defending like your life depends on it. I think obviously you can’t stop some goals and some goals the opposition team score, sometimes you’ve just got to take your hat off to them.
But I think we’ve just got to be more aggressive in and around our own box as a team, just blocking shots, everything that comes our way, that we’re trying to keep it out as much as we can, and we know deflections sometimes go in, but if you’re doing the best possible thing to stop the ball going in the net, then that’s all you can ask for.
I think we just showed it against Lincoln when we kept a clean sheet, we showed it against Northampton. Obviously, they scored a decent enough goal, but we just got to probably take that stuff out of it, and just make it so that anything that comes into the box, it’s ours.
We can do a lot in a lot of things better, but I thought there was a few things in there [against Northampton] that we can build on. Obviously, the goal we should do better — we defended well as a unit, but there’s a lapse in concentration for the goal, and or we had our chances to probably get the winner.
