The following are selected highlights of Martin Drury’s pre-match press conference ahead of facing Bolton. You can hear the full thing, as well as Jak Alwnick’s thoughts, on our podcast feed or by hitting the play button above. You can also check out our weekly digest for full team news.
Jamie Raynor (BBC Radio Leeds): Martin, good to see you again. Now the dust has somewhat settled on Tuesday night, how do you reflect on what was such a strong performance from the team, but ultimately a disappointing result in the end?
Yeah, exactly as you said, a really, really strong performance from the group. I arrived home late Tuesday night, got the laptop out, watched the game back. I was very, very pleased with many aspects within the game, in particular the amount of chances that we created, the threat that we posed to Cardiff.
As I said after the game, I think it’s 15 shot, is it, from within their box? Which is quite a staggering statistic — but again, somewhat disappointing to only take one goal from that.
I thought out of possession the players were excellent. The first thing I look for when we’re watching is whether they’re invested in what they’re doing psychologically. I thought they were immense from start to finish, which you have to be against Cardiff because they’re so good attacking down the sides, really, really good.
So I thought the work the players put in, I thought they looked together, I thought they looked connected, I thought their work ethic and their levels of output physically were outstanding. And as I say, and as you said, it’s somewhat frustrating that we don’t get over the line and take three points.
JR: Does Tuesday not only encourage you, but maybe slightly frustrate you, in the sense that they can put out that level of performance and reach, to an extent, that potential that you see in the group, but then have not done that maybe as consistently over a period of time across the season as a whole?
There’s frustration within it, but at the same time it’s quite comforting, because I feel, as I said after the game, to have complete clarity on exactly where we are, what are the strengths of the group, what good things have we got. I think those things have been really, really clear to see of late.
But I also like the fact that it’s crystal clear what we need to get better at, whether that’s on us, whether that’s on the players, or collectively together. There’s things we need to improve in, and I don’t think they’re big things. I really don’t.
And maybe across the season people have looked in and gone, ‘there needs to be some big, big changes here, we need to do this, we need to do that’…I don’t see that.
We have to be strategic in what changes we make, whether that’s from us as staff or players. But I think the potential of the group, as you said there, is a lot higher than potentially what people were thinking.
I believe in the group, and I think with some very, very small tweaks we can get big gains. And as you’ve said, I think the potential for the future is massive.
JR: How much are you involved in long-term discussions of this football club, as well as the fact that you’ve got a short-term goal to still try and reach?
Of course, it’s within your thinking, naturally thinking about it. But the priority for us as a group of staff right now is the here and now.
The powers that be, I’m sure, will have eyes on what the future looks like. Of course, there’s conversations, but they’re not big conversations at this moment in time because we’ve got a job to do and we’ve got to help these players, and that’s been our focus, to help these players in the last stage of the season.
So we’ll continue to do that, and I’m sure that further down the line those decisions and certain things that will be done will be made by people that you can definitely trust from above.
So for now, we just focus on what we can do. We work with the players the best we can. The players, as I said, have been first class. I’m enjoying the relationship between us and the players, and we’ll continue to do that over these next three games.
JR: We’ve obviously now learned that Jake Edwards has left his role as the club’s chief executive in the last 24 hours by mutual agreement. Does that at all have any impact on your current situation, the conversations that you’re having day to day?
None whatsoever, no. None whatsoever. I wish Jake all the best. Jake was a lovely guy. Everything that I had to do with him when he was here was really good.
The decision has been made between Jake and the club, and as I say, I look ahead for him and I wish him all the best for the future. But for me, solely right now, I’ve got quite a lot on, Jamie, so I’ll focus on the players.
JR: Bojan [Radulovic] obviously came off part way through the first half on Tuesday. Is his situation at all any clearer?
Well, he’s one of the ones that came in this morning saying, “I’m all good to go on Saturday,” with his arm hanging off.
So that’ll be a late call with Bojan. He got a scan yesterday on it, and it’s not as bad as we first feared, which is really positive news because everyone knows how good he is and how big he is for us.
’m not sure Saturday is realistic at this moment in time, but we’ll do everything we possibly can to try and get him on the pitch for Saturday. So yeah, that one’s definitely in the balance.
JR: If Saturday isn’t achievable for him, in terms of replacement, is it game by game in terms of how you approach the opposition from a forward-line standpoint, like for like with Bojan and his physical presence, or more diminutive in the form of Alfie May?
I think you have to respect who you’re playing against first and foremost, and also not just respect their threats but also be excited about the areas you think you can hurt them, and then look at which players you think can do that.
So if you look at the Wycombe game on Saturday, if Alfie May had scored, I think everyone would have said he was outstanding in the game. If you look at his movement, if you look at his link-up play, if you look at the work he did without the ball, he got an assist. He was just missing a goal. And goals can often change the opinions of how people see that people have performed. I thought Alfie was excellent.
Tuesday night was a completely different game from that role and that position. We needed something a little bit different. We needed somebody who could help us defend on the sides, which is not natural for Alfie. He does it, but it’s not natural to him. And we needed someone that would travel with the ball on transitions to get us up the pitch and offer that threat, and then also press with a real intensity, which Alfie did really well against Wycombe.
But if you look at [David] Kasumu’s performance the other night, he was brilliant. He was brilliant for what was needed for that game.
So it’s not us picking players based on who do we like this week and who do we like [the next] week. It’s based on all aspects of the game.
Who’s going to help us hurt the opponent? Who’s going to help us defend when we haven’t got the ball?
When we haven’t got Bojan, that changed the game plan, how we felt we could attack the other day. We felt goal kicks for us would be a really, really big part of how we could attack. You saw that in the first half, the way Bojan held the ball up, the way we were able to get movements underneath him, link in play off him.
Alfie May is a completely different player, completely different profile, so I wouldn’t ask Alfie to do that job. George [Sebine] is a different profile. George is more similar to Bojan. We had no reservations to put George on the pitch.
I thought he did it well at times, and we have to help him, as we’ve done today on the grass, with some work around how we can refine some of those techniques that he has alongside his physical capabilities.
So that’ll be no different. We look at Bolton, we look at where we can hurt Bolton, but then we also look at how do we stop Bolton and pay the respect that they’re due, and then we’ll pick a team based on what we think will win the game of football.
