Joey, we’ll start with Sam Finley’s new contract. He has kind of gone under the radar, but he can do a bit of everything and he’s such a useful player to have around in the team and in the squad.
Yeah, and I think anyone who watches us regularly will say when we play well, it tends to coincide with Sam playing well.
He was a huge part of the team functioning correctly. He’s got an important role in driving us on from midfield. He obviously wins his fair share of ball back but his passing range and his ability to open up an opposition team, even in the early part of this season, he’s put some real quality into those areas and managed to get the lads opportunities to score goals.
We feel his best football is in front of him and we’re delighted to secure him to the football club for the next two years.
He’s quite versatile within that. You’ve played him as an 8 and even as a 10 sometimes, but recently he’s been a bit more defensively minded than he has been previously.
Yeah, and I think he is certainly a player capable of opening up an opposition team and I wouldn’t necessarily say the best part of his game is making him a holding midfielder, but he can also do that.
For us, we feel Sam is at his best when he just roams and finds the play and finds the ball. He’s an all-action player and when he gets his tail up and plays well, that usually goes hand in hand with a positive performance and usually getting a positive result.
The challenge now for Sam is keep showing and keep being a big player for us. He’ll want to do well on Saturday with Accrington being one of his former clubs.
A couple of staffing changes with David Coles coming back and Eddy Jennings having an official role at the club.
He’s (Jennings) been here as long as anyone, really. He’s been here with us and he’s one of those guys who doesn’t really need a title, he just gets on with doing his job.
Whatever title you put on it, he’s an integral part of what we do here.
Colesy coming back is a slightly different role. It was the role I had in mind for him when he left, but he didn’t want to do it.
He then went out to India and I think he ended up getting a sore hip. He’s had that operated on and, with us losing Tony Warner in the summer, we didn’t have anyone in mind.
Anssi fancied the role and I think Anssi will be good at it long term, but he was relatively new to that position.
I maintained a good relationship with Colesy and when I spoke to him, the role that I had in mind for him was a lot more palatable for him because of the experience he’d gone through.
We felt we needed somebody who could come in and help Anssi and the coaching department from a goalkeeping perspective, getting up to speed, and there is nobody better than David Coles in that regard.
He’s such a keen coach and he loves teaching, he loves being in and around the players every day. The problem for us at the time is the difficulty of being the goalkeeping position is you’ve got to lash balls every day and we felt we needed somebody on the younger side to do that.
Obviously, Tony came in and did superb and had a fantastic year with us and then he went to Reading. We felt Anssi could take that on but it was tough because he was having to be a goalkeeper as well.
I saw Colesy was out of work, had a really good chat with him and he’s back in on a part-time basis.
He gives us that head of goalkeeping we’re looking for, which will help ups grow our goalkeeping department from academy to first team, and he can go and watch Jed (Ward) when he’s playing (for Hungerford Town).
It just allows us to run that arm of our coaching department as efficiently and effectively as possible.
On the back of Saturday, it wasn’t a normal 6-3 and there were plenty of positives to take out of it. Do you have to keep an eye on certain players because some players may say the right things, but on the training pitch they maybe don’t show the same level of confidence? Has that manifested itself with any of the squad going into this weekend?
Honestly, we’ve had another brilliant week and touch wood we get to Saturday with the same energy in the building.
On Monday morning, we went through the game and the goals and we also showed them all the good stuff they did. It was quite a tricky morning because we lost 6-3, so there’s no escaping that, but you have to show them if we eradicate this, which was for us not only mistakes we made but team selection and we knew we were undermanned from the resources we had in the building and the resources we had available to us on matchday.
But there was so much good stuff in there that we can take forward and build on. The lads have been superb, really taken on the information this week and there is a lightness in the building and you wouldn’t think we just had my record defeat as a manager.
Weirdly, I’ve been happier this week with where we are. It doesn’t make sense, it shouldn’t make sense, I should be angry and more frustrated and so should the players, but we’re not. We’re really confident we can get in our stadium on Saturday and we feel we’re right on the cusp of this turning.
Players coming back will help that, but we don’t think we’re a million miles away. We haven’t won in six in the league and seven in all competitions, but you wouldn’t think that if you were in and around the place, so eventually when we get results and get back in the bridle, this group will crack on.
We’ve got to work hard on Saturday against a wily opponent in Accrington to earn those vital three points and earn that win and get rolling again.
And squad-wise, you should at least have a couple of extra decisions to make with Bobby Thomas and Jordan Rossiter coming back?
Yeah, nice. They’re both off the back of a suspension and it gives us another couple of options in there. We’re definitely stronger than we were last Saturday and, as I say, we’re desperate to get in our stadium and put right the wrongs of last week.
Accrington are one of those teams at this level, and they’ve been here for a while now, that I think opposition fans quite often underestimate but managers don’t.
No, you don’t. For me, (John Coleman is) probably the most undervalued manager in the football pyramid.
The job he’s done, taking Accrington from the non-league scene and establishing them firmly as a League One club. In the midst of that, the profit he has generated in terms of selling player after player and the resources he has available to him, honestly, the job John Coleman, Jimmy Bell and John Doolan have done there is exceptional.
I’d struggle to put anybody in the same space, but you don’t read about it anywhere and he doesn’t get linked with other jobs. I think that’s disappointing because if given an opportunity with bigger resources, it would be fascinating to see what he could do because of what he does on a shoestring at Accrington.
They play the right way. They’re always trying to play the right way and have trick plays from set-plays. It’s not like they’re route one and a launch-it team.
It’s difficult to recruit people to Accrington. I played in Burnley and I know how it’s logistically difficult to get people onto the middle of the moors there.
John does that consistently and has done it now for a ridiculously long period and we’re going to have to be at our best on Saturday to take anything off Accrington.
There is a bit of added spice with us all being from similar areas of Merseyside.
Bit of bragging rights then?
Yeah. For us, we just need to get back to winning ways as soon as possible.
For them, they will be sensing we’ve conceded six last time out. I wouldn’t imagine they’ll come here and shut up shop. They’ll be taking us on and they will fancy themselves, certainly if they watch footage of the Lincoln game. I don’t think it will put any fear into them.
But also, they know us well and they know our team will respond to losing the game last time out. We can’t wait to get in our stadium and put that right.
Joey, I know you don’t like your games of football to be played like basketball. I think Accrington have the highest shot volume in the league, taking an average of 16 shots again. It seems they have a shoot on sight policy and it makes me think they want a game that is going to flow.
Saturday is going to be exciting, make no bones about it. I thought last Saturday was, albeit a lot of the action was at the wrong end and wrong net.
We can’t play the way we want to play just at this moment because we don’t have all the components fit – we’ve got a lot of them in the building – so we’re finding different ways to play.
We want to entertain, that is the reality. If people are going to pay hard-earned wages to come and watch us play, I think we have a responsibility to entertain, and I think John Coleman and the Accy boys, that is 100 per cent the way they play.
They don’t change for anybody. They have their style and their way of playing.
We need to be better in some departments, but we certainly aren’t shutting up shop. We want to take teams on and entertain our fans.
I think, certainly in the last six months, we’ve been an entertaining team to watch. Most of the time, we’ve come on the right side of the results although sometimes we haven’t.
One guarantee I will give the Gasheads is if you come and watch us play, you will be entertained. Some days, we might lose, but most of the time I believe if you play that way, I believe the fans stay with you and good results and good moments happen through attacking, adventurous football.
Lewis Gibson and Josh Grant, have they trained this week and are they in contention for Saturday?
Back on the grass. Trained, but not with us, so they are on the route map to come back but I don’t think they’re going to be available for Saturday’s game barring divine intervention.
James Gibbons?
He’s back on the grass as well, so a bit of a rehab group coming. Hopefully, we’re probably looking at two weeks before they can start pushing for first-team opportunities.
I’ve even seen James Connolly out there, walking on the grass. He wasn’t running, but he’s back on the grass. You can see the troops starting to return, albeit it doesn’t really affect us for Saturday’s game, but you can see light at the end of the tunnel with those boys.
And what’s the latest from Middlesbrough with Josh Coburn? Have they given you an ETA?
Yeah, I think he’s due to come down next week. There were rumours he was going to join with us.
He is finishing the end stage of his rehabilitation with their team and then we’ll get our hands on him, so that’s another bit of good news, albeit we haven’t seen him.
Do you have Luca Hoole available for this weekend, or is he on international duty after being called up for Wales U21s?
Disappointing. Don’t tell the Welsh this, but I think he was wanting to stay because he knows we’re a bit light on bodies in that area.
Fortunately or unfortunately, international gets priority and they want to call him up. It’s an incredible thing to represent your country and we don’t want to stop anybody doing that, albeit we probably could do with him this weekend.
But we just have to make a plan and get a result with the others available.
Last week, you revealed you were in talks with a free agent. Is there any update on that?
I haven’t spoken to him this week. Nothing new. I felt it was kind of a long shot. He’s hasn’t signed for anyone yet or anything like that, but we’ve got to focus on who we’ve got here.
The thing is, lots of people make contact with you and until you speak directly to people, you don’t quite know what the lay of the land is but, for us, we’ve got to focus on the boys in the building and getting them organised to go and take maximum points on Saturday.
So you’re not closing the door on that one?
Never do. For me, we’re always looking to add to our group if there is quality out there, but as of yet all I’ve heard are noises and people saying ‘He might be available’.
As of yet, I haven’t had a direct conversation with anyone. For me, I’m living our life as if that’s not going to happen.
The man who is dealing with that, I guess, is Eddy Jennings, who has a new job title. I imagine it is business as usual as he has had that influence since he’s been here with you, but can you give us a bit of insight about Eddy and what his strengths are, and also about your relationship with him having worked together for a long time?
Yeah, a really long time. At Fleetwood and here, he’s been with us since day one and operated in the shadows.
He’s a huge part of what we do and why we’ve been successful here.
The recruitment aspect of it, he obviously sits at the apex of that, but also in terms of our cultures and day-to-day procedure, he’s very much involved in running it.
You could argue he’s a very close assistant of mine. Not out on the grass or in a coaching aspect of it, but certainly off the field and moving the daily standards and the daily operating procedures.
He also dovetails quite well between the owner and myself and Tom Gorringe and allows communication to run smoothly between the four of us, who are probably the most the influential people when it comes to decisions on and off the field at the football club.
You like to look at the season in 10-game blocks and you’re coming up to the 10th game now. A very similar record to last season in terms of points. What have you learned from the start of this season, or has it been difficult to make meaningful observations because of player availability?
I think I’ve learned so much. When you’re not firing on all cylinders, you learn so much more because when you’re winning and everything’s going well, you’re just bouncing from game to game.
It is in the hardship and adversity of forging a team together where you learn about the characters. The one thing I know is we’ve got enormous character in our group.
We’ve got a lot of young players in there, but I see them growing day by day, session by session. You can see them coming together.
That’s the key for me. You’re 5-1 down in the Mem, 5-2, 6-2 down, and yet they were still trying to play and still fighting and they didn’t roll over and get their bellies tickled at any point.
Well, if that’s what we’re like on a bad day when everything kind of goes wrong, we know what this group have historically been like on a good day.
Knowing that the fans are with them, for me that was so important. There were one or two that left early and there might have been a little bit of discontent naturally with us conceding a lot of goals and losing a home game, but there was so much positivity in that stadium.
I’ve only been here a short period of time and I can say that was definitely not the case when I first experienced the fans in the stadium. When I first came in, it was COVID so we didn’t really know what was happening, but externally you could feel ‘Bristol Rovers are going to concede in the last 10’.
There was this defeatist attitude to the whole place and again we were defeated when we lost a battle last week, but it was 5-2 and 6-3 and they still believed the team could get back in it. If the Lofty chance to make it 6-4…
I was talking to Couttsy about it and it was ‘If we score that…’ It was like that momentum feeling we had in the Scunthorpe game and in the Rochdale game. For me, that’s a great thing. It means you’re a dangerous animal, no matter what’s going on.
With the chips down, this team keeps fighting, and the key is the fans know that and they will hang around in the stadium and they will keep supporting them, even on a bad day because they know the response this group is likely to give.
We’re so thankful for that support, we don’t take it for granted and we know it hasn’t always been that way here, but on Saturday we have to get in our stadium and really give them something to get behind and cheer for.
We’re looking forward to getting in there and putting on a show for them.
Elliot Anderson signed a new contract at Newcastle this week. You must be incredibly proud of the part you and this club have played in his journey so far?
I think we all are. It’s always nice to see a young boy become a man and step into that space. Connor Taylor the same and even Luke Thomas. Those boys are all signs of progress.
The key is you get your hands on something and make it better and the same with a football club. When you take over, the key is at the end of it, you want to win loads of trophies and leagues. Of course, we all do, but the key is you are a custodian and that you leave the club in a much better position than what you found it. We’re working tirelessly every day to do that.
Elliot was a huge factor in us getting promoted last year and we’ll all be incredibly thankful to him for his play for us and the way he was as a man, but also for us there is a proud moment seeing him sign a new contract and doing really well for his parent club.
He’s a top kid and he’s done that himself through the drive and the determination he’s got to be a footballer.
I texted him yesterday and said ‘Don’t rest’. I don’t know what they have given him, but the numbers are scary in the Premier League, but they will have looked after him.
The key now is not settling and accepting and patting yourself on the back, the key is now to drive on and get the next one and that being as short a space of time between contracts as possible.
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