Joey, given the circumstances, down to 10 men, was that one of your best wins of the season?
I think Walsall away will still be my favourite, probably of my managerial career. At Walsall, with the Sion Spence winner and the limbs, I think they call it now, the young’uns.
But yeah, I’d have taken 0-0. We were downhill and downwind in the first period, huffing and puffing without creating any good goal-scoring opportunities and then I just felt the officials got in the way of the game.
It was a strange decision to book Luca (Hoole) considering it was that he protested or asked for a yellow card after their lad had absolutely poleaxed James Connolly after the ball had gone. Then to compound it by, five or six minutes later, giving him the second one.
I said to the ref at full time, “He’s 19” and he says, “well, how am I meant to know that?” I said “just look at his face!” He hasn’t got a hair on his face, Luca. You’ve got to give him the benefit of the doubt, if it was a bad challenge, really late, reckless, I could understand dismissing him from the pitch.
But, he’s not been great for us that referee when he’s been here and I’m not going to talk about him further because the focus should go on the credit that the players deserve. The fans as well for sticking with the group.
There’s a marked change here. We went down to 10 men but we had our 11th man with us because the 12th man stepped up and drove the lads on. The scenes at the end, superb.
I didn’t think it was possible months ago because it was difficult here but we’re finally moving to where we want to move and the best is yet to come from this team.
The club is united, off the field as well as on it. We’ve got a lot of work to do to reactivate the passion of the fans and that comes through winning games of football.
But when I look now and see the club shop interacting with supporters and making sure tickets are there. You can’t have a good football team without a good football club. We’ve got a superb owner here and he’s made some tough calls to get rid of people who were in positions of authority.
We’ve got a young CEO, a young manager, young playing group, younger supporters. The support at the Swindon game, that’s a Championship-level support. Seeing 3,000 people in an away stadium at any level is exceptional.
We’re just going to keep building and building. I remember saying after Blackpool last year. My intention is to give the Gasheads a team that they could get behind and be proud of and I think if nobody was convinced of that before today, they certainly are now.
There wasn’t a murmur of negativity amongst the fanbase in the game, they stuck with you and were rewarded with that late goal and James Belshaw managed to carry on it was just a real spirit on and off the pitch...
Yeah, and you look at Harvey who has been out since he had the knock at Bradford. He then broke his hand on the way back and he’s been chomping at the bit.
He was unlucky not to be on the bench today and the bravery he shows to go and compete for that ball against the goalkeeper and win the ball, got us a penalty. The rebond falls to Aaron “the goal” Collins at the minute.
He’s Johnny on the spot and he’s becoming a real terrace hero, the amount of late goals or superb goals he’s scoring.
I’m so pleased because we’ve got so many young players in there. It’s been tough to be a player here for the last two or three years, by the sound of things. I’ve had a tough year here and there’s people who have been here a lot longer than me.
So, to see the passion and all the fans coming in the stadium and the way they interact with us now compared to the way it was. I didn’t think it was going to possible, at times I was wondering how are we going to turn this around.
We’ve got a good group who have all looked out for each other. I’ve been low myself, both professionally and personally at times and the group have protected me and looked after me. We’ve had players sent off and the group has stepped up.
We’ve got a real togetherness here and it’s starting to happen off the pitch as well. As I say we are fortunate that we have got probably the best untapped supporter base in the UK.
Bristol is a goldmine that nobody has tapped, and the Rovers side of it definitely is. I can’t wait to give these a football team that will last the ages because that is what I’ve come here for.
Great to have Alex Rodman and Harvey Saunders on the bench. No Leon Clarke or Brett Pitman, was that minor injuries? What’s the situation there?
We’re going to let Brett explore the market. We had a chat with him during the week and I think, the way we want to be and what we want to do, it hasn’t quite worked out for him.
It’s going to be difficult to give him opportunities now based on the players we’ve got at our disposal. If you’ve had a career like Brett has had, you want to go out playing. You don’t want to go out being 19th man and not playing on a matchday.
It’s different of you’re 20 and you’re developing or you’re 19, but not when you’re 33. So, I wanted to give him that opportunity. I spoke to him after the Scunthorpe game about exploring the opportunity to see what is out there for him. So, he’s doing that now with his agent.
Clarkey, we just felt after the Tuesday night game. He trained yesterday, fine, and then just felt a little bit of soreness in his leg and obviously we can’t risk him because, he’s only just back from injury.
Then for us to have Harvey coming back, it takes the pressure off Leon. Lofty was left out for another reason, but has managed to somehow pick up an injury from the Swindon game.
So I had loads of centre forwards on Friday morning and then I had only Aaron Collins and Harvey coming back Saturday morning, that’s just football.
But, it’s the group effort and squad that gets us through. We’ll find different ways to win and the lads have done that in the early part of the season. Today, the character, I’m so proud of them as a group, it was enormous.
I’m so proud of everyone at the football club because it’s been turbulent and finally this football club, thanks to incredible support from multiple outlets, is moving in the right direction.
And just very quickly, Monday - January window closed, are you expecting one or two new faces?
I’m hoping. But as I say they’re never over until they’re over. So, the game comes around and that was my focus really, getting maximum return from this game today.
But as soon as I leave and I’ve had a shower, I’ll be hunting down some quality for us if it’s there in the marketplace.
I think we’re very close but I still think there’s a few positions where if we could add a bit of quality, I think that will really give us some impetus into February and the second half of the season.
Joey, just picking up off the back of that question, what are those positions that you are looking to recruit in? Because there aren’t clearly many needs in the squad, you’ve got a lot of bases covered, but where are you looking to make those tweaks?
I think we could do with a recognised left full-back. Mainly because it just allows Nick Anderton to come into left-side centre-half which I think is his natural position.
He’s such a warrior for us, Nick. He’ll play anywhere he’s that type of boy. But again you’ve seen with Josh again, he’s so important to us, he’s such a good player but we’ve got to build resilience into his body.
He’s done a couple of different positions. He started off centre midfield, ends up doing a great shift for us at full back. Then at the back end of the game, he just felt a little bit of tightness.
A three-game week is a big load for him. We took him off in the game Tuesday night to save him for the Saturday game and he’s 80 minutes and we’re down to 10, so the last thing I want is to lose Josh, so that was a precautionary measure.
The lads who came on, Whelo (Glenn Whelan) back from a week away for family reasons. Harvey back from a long lay-off. Harry Anderson, who’s been carrying a couple of niggles, the little break has given him some freshness.
So, I’d probably play left full-back and I think we could do with another Sam Finley, Antony Evans-type midfielder, but they’re difficult to find, especially when you’re a League Two manager.
Were you surprised by how well you were able to manage their threat, I don’t think you gave them a clear-cut chance throughout the 60 minutes when it was 11vs10...
We’ve kind of been used to it though. Port Vale, I thought we were the better side when we had 10 players. We beat Northampton. But, I think that’s the eighth sending off this season, it’s the second yellow cards.
For me, your discipline has got to be tight, because you can’t go down to 10 too often. I say that but end up taking wins from it. But I don’t want that to happen, because obviously we’ll be much better with 11.
But because of it happening quite a bit, the lads don’t panic. We switched from a 4-3-2 to a 4-4-1 and then back to a 4-3-2 to win the game. I knew they’d (Walsall) come on. With a 4-3-2 we we were dealing with it.
They recognised where the space was after about 70 minutes and Connor Wilkinson has taken a couple of shots off the left hand side. We brought Harry Anderson on to seal the edge.
We go back to 4-4-1, contain them in that and so they’ve forgotten where the overload was or it’s not there for them anymore. Then we went back to the 4-3-2 and get the winner from it. If it works you’re a genius, and if it doesn’t you’re an idiot and that is the tightrope you walk as a modern day football club.
But credit to the lads, they took it on. They could’ve shut up shop and taken the 0-0 and I’d have been happy with that.
A clean sheet at home and with 10 men for as long as we did. But the players decided to win.
They decided to go and put the ball in those areas and put their bodies on the line and follow it up and they deserve enormous credit.
As I say, the fanbase being with them and seeing them go in that end. Oxford was magical, Walsall away was magical and we’re creating lots of those moments and it’s long overdue at this football club.
Looking at the league table, I believe you’re six points off play-offs with a game in hand, if you look back to some of the tough times you’ve had, Forest Green at the start of December for example, I know they’re the real pace-setters but it felt like you were a long way off.
It couldn’t really have gone better for you since then, I guess Swindon you could call it a blip but that’s the only thing. But should the league be worried about Bristol Rovers because you’ve got momentum behind you?
I don’t really think about what other people are doing, I just think about what we’re doing. I know people laughed at me, because my stock wasn’t as high as what it is today, when I said at Barrow that we’d be right in the mix.
I was maybe the only man in the country who felt that at the time, I had the support of my owner though, so he must’ve felt it as well. But I’ve always believed in this group, and when the penny drops with a group of men and you’ve got a passionate fanbase like this.
40,000 at Wembley in the Conference play-off final, it’s insane. There’s not many clubs that are capable of that and the good thing for me now is, they’re starting to believe and once they start to believe, the big burden of playing for Rovers, with the Bristol Post and Radio Bristol on you.
It’s different when you’re talking about a Championship, Premier League-level club. I’m even seeing the Bristol microscope, City in the Championship aren’t really coping with it, the introspection.
For me I’m used to it, I played at the apex and you’re always under the gun. But Division 3 and 4 players even Championship players, they're not as mentally robust as what maybe they need to be to thrive here.
But this group of lads that we’ve put together are. You look at James Belshaw, works his way up the levels with Harrogate. He comes here and you wonder how’s he going to handle the crowd and the expectation, and he’s just grown and grown in the shirt. Aaron Collins coming from Forest Green, at the start he doesn’t looks like he’s going to score.
All of a sudden, he’s going to be a folk hero if he carries on. Harvey Saunders, Antony Evans, these young hungry lions, Connor Taylor and James Connolly who I thought was outstanding today. Nick Anderton, he had a bit of a wobble at the start of the season but has come back stronger.
They’ve got wind in their sails now and when you get that momentum in football, and the fanbase is backing you and believing in you the way we are and they read all the good stuff they’re meriting in the papers or wherever they consume it.
That’s only going to help us go up, I’ve got to guard against complacency. But that’s a nice problem to have rather than picking everybody up off the canvas. It’s been tough and there’s going to be some tough moments ahead because we have loads of hard work to do.
We’re only 12th or 13th in League Two, and we’ve got another game against Sutton. A side that won again today and are sitting in the top six, 11 points ahead of us, but an opportunity for us to close the gap.
We played them in the cup and it was a tough game and at their stadium we’re expecting a tough encounter. But now we look forward to games and as I say, the best is yet to come from this group.
Sam Finley and Ryan Loft, are they in line to play next weekend?
I don’t know, if I had a crystal ball I’d be able to tell you.
Lofty got kneed in the back, ironically in the Swindon game, the really aggressive game from one of their guys and kicked in the face, so he had a couple of stitches.
But you don’t see us complaining about it. He thought it was a dead leg and a bruise. He’s then trained and it’s not got better. He’s had a scan and that’s shown it’s a little bit of a tare.
So that might mean he misses a couple of weeks. Clarkey I’m hoping is ok but we’ve just got to take precautions. It wasn’t his hamstring that he’s had before, it was another part of his body but obviously we don’t want to risk him because he’ll be vital for the run-in.
Sam Finley felt his groin in the Scunny game. He was chomping to play but I said no, he is far too important for us, we can’t risk you, take a bit of time.
So I’m hoping he might come back into the fold for next Saturday, but whoever is called upon as you’ve seen, whichever way we go, the depth in the squad and the quality we’ve recruited will pay us back.
We’ve had no centre forward in previous games. I wouldn’t say Azz is a centre forward, albeit his goal return is, but I think he would benefit massively from playing with a nine especially with the vein of form he’s in now and Harvey Saunders back from a little bit of a lay-off.
So we’ve got young hungry players that are desperate to impress and do well for the club. They know where the club has been and how tough it’s been for everyone at the club. I’m really proud of the players and really proud of the football club and long may it continue.
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