Going back to last weekend, does it take a while to get over matches like that where you were so frustrated with what was going on?
You’re disappointed we haven’t won the game; that was the overriding feeling. I was frustrated I had been sent off because I’ve said a lot worse to officials and not been sent off, so I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing.
But I shouldn’t swear at him. I’m a human being and you naturally get caught up in the emotion of the game and when decisions are marginal calls and you feel they’re not going for you, you get frustrated.
I apologised on Sunday to Bobby. I think he’s a good referee. He’s obviously new to the English pyramid, he’s done most of his refereeing north of the border.
If I said what I truly believed, I would get banned and fined massively. It’s the reason I didn’t do the press after the game because we can’t tell the truth about what’s happening because we’re punished if we do.
From my side of that, I’m disappointed because I’m kicking myself – ‘Did we concede in the stoppage time of me getting sent off?’
I ask the players to have a collective bed of discipline and I have to take accountability for losing my discipline.
These flashpoints are always going to happen in games and it’s about being passionate. Have you always found as a person you are able to move on from it easier now? You’ve had the flashpoint, does it sit on you in maybe the way it would when you were younger?
I just feel there are different ways of communicating. Whenever I’ve said what I’ve said publicly in the past, I’ve been asked by the FA, EFL, the referees or whoever it is to communicate it in a slightly different manner and I decided to do that this time around.
It’s part of my learning. You speak to the referees’ association and the powers that be there and you get some answers back, but why was he doing that game of all games? The fact he hadn’t refereed Fleetwood to that point was the reason I was given, but surely that isn’t the game to put him on?
Anyway, they give you the answers back from there and you’re scratching your head a bit going ‘Why was common sense not applied?’
How do we as football players or football staff voice our discontent? Because we can’t do it in the media because they’ll fine us or ban us. I wasn’t allowed to speak to him after the game, he wouldn’t speak to me. Usually, we’re allowed to after 30 minutes but I wasn’t allowed to do that.
On Saturday, Sunday and Monday, you’re speaking to the FA and the referees and the EFL, but the official just carries on regardless.
If I truly said what I believe happened in the game on Saturday, I’d be banned – I guarantee you – for a long period and I’d be fined. If I felt it was worthwhile to do so, I’d call it out, but you can all sense my frustration and everyone knows what I’m saying.
I will get pulled in. I think the FA want to interview me about what was said and I cannot wait to go and speak to the FA because I’m going to speak to them and call it exactly what it was on Saturday. I’m not going to do that in this forum, but when I speak to the FA – because I feel that’s my place to say what’s happened – I’m going to explain to them and it’s going to be quite blunt because that’s the way I see it.
On a more positive note, that second-half performance, a little bit like the Plymouth one, showed what you’re capable of when you’re firing on all cylinders. That’s got to give you a lot of hope going forward that you if you can extend that for 90 minutes, you’ll be in a very good spot.
Yeah, and we should have put it beyond the referee. We should have put it beyond his ability to affect the contest because we had a number of chances to put it beyond a refereeing call or something crazy in the last 5-10 minutes of football matches, which can always happen.
Maybe that’s our learning. In recent weeks, we’ve closed the shop down, brought players on to see the job out and it’s worked for us and we’ve managed to take the requisite points off the board.
Part of your mindset when you come out of it is you’re questioning everything that you go through, firstly your own conduct and secondly the substitutes you’ve made. Could we have gone for the kill instead of trying to manage the game out?
We were 10 seconds away from getting the job done. Frustrated, but we’ve got to learn lessons and come back stronger.
We’ve certainly shown in recent weeks we can cause problems for anyone, but we need to stop giving ourselves a goal or a two-goal deficit at half time to overcome. The players spoke in the dressing room about that after the game and I thought it was brilliant from them.
The senior figures spoke about ‘We can’t wait to get in here at half time, make a change and then get after teams’. We’ve done that in recent weeks and we must cut that out because we feel we are a really good team, albeit we’re 17th in the table and we’ve left a lot of points out there from our perspective.
Some teams are really good at think on the hoof and changing in the games. There is a limit to what you can do when the match is on. Is that down to the senior players or one two key individuals following them? How do you get that?
It’s confidence, isn’t it? Confidence comes from winning games.
No plan survives first contact with the enemy, so we do all these weird and wonderful strategic plans and this is why I always try to coach in a bit of fluidity into my teams from a tactical perspective. People prepare to win a game against you and they want to stifle the good things you do absolutely.
Most of the time, if you have one option, the opposition doesn’t take a large period of time to figure you out, whether that’s the first 15-20 minutes of the game. What happens is there usually will be a couple of adjustments, you get a chance to adjust at half time, but then if you’re shouting on during the noise of the game, it’s really tough to affect the tactical flow of a game by making substitutions.
You can do it, of course, but it’s a lot more straightforward when there is a break in play like half time and you can give not just a verbal instruction but you’ve got your different types of learning and it can need video footage or showing tactics.
You can settle a group down at half time and make a tactical adjustment. Then what happens is the opposition will usually adjust, usually to what they’ve seen.
We changed to a back three on Saturday and speaking to Scott Brown after the game, they were happy. They were like ‘OK, they’ve matched us up’ and he said they were quite happy we matched them up at half time, but if you ask him at the end of the second half, barring the goal we were definitely the better team in the second period.
For me, that fluidity is key because you’re playing chess with other people. The less time people have time to respond to it, the better, but we’re having to make those adjustments because we’re finding ourselves behind at half time through one reason or another.
We must stop that because it is putting pressure on the front side of our team, we’ve got to score two goals to win every game if we keep conceding. The front side of the team are firing and scoring goals, but we need to be a lot more Scrooge-like in the build-up to Christmas – or Nick Anderton and James Belshaw, they’re meant to be the tightest two. We need to take a leaf out of Scrooge, or Nick Anderton or James Belshaw’s spend book and stop giving teams goals.
It’s frustrating and I think when we learn those lessons, I do think we are good side. It will be up to us whether we are a promotion-chasing side or just a good League Two team that has stayed up quite comfortably in League One, which would be progress for the group.
But I think everyone that comes to watch us, fans and journalists alike, you know we’re better than 17th. How good we are, we’re yet to find out, but we have that feeling ourselves. But at the minute, the league table doesn’t lie and at the end of the 46 games it won’t lie.
It’s frustrating, we feel we’re a lot better than that, but at this moment in time we haven’t got the points on the board to show that.
The next two fixtures, if we come out with positive results and positive performances, I think we’ll know we’re at least top 10, if not top eight in the division because I feel Bolton and Peterborough are in that bracket.
And if you’re trying to be tighter at the back, coming up against the league’s top scorer in Jonson Clarke-Harris would make that more difficult. Peterborough always seem to be an attacking team with lots of goals in League One. Is that something you relish and you’ll try to turn it into a basketball game, or do you just want to shut them down?
No, no, no, we don’t play like that. You’ve seen in the last few years, we want to take the game to teams.
I think on Saturday at the Mem, you’ve got Jonno with his history at the club and his great goalscoring record and you’ve got the new kid on the block in Aaron Collins. In the calendar year, only him and Jonno are knocking goals in like that.
On the other side of that is the assists. Azza doesn’t take penalties and when you haven’t got the ball, in terms of can you set a live press… I think Clarke-Harris is a helluva striker and I’d like to have him in our team, and I nearly got him when he signed for Bristol Rovers.
I think I would have got more out of him than people have got because with the greatest respect to him, he wouldn’t have the BMI and body fat he has playing for the teams he’s played for. Playing for us, we definitely would have got him trimmed down.
That’s not a smite on the people he’s worked with. I would have been on him every single day, I’d have been going home with him, making sure he was eating the right food and everything because I know with power-to-weight ratio, he could be even better than what he is and that is probably Grant McCann’s frustration with him and Darren Ferguson’s and many other managers.
It’s probably cost Jonno a move to a big club because he’s scored enough goals to make teams further up the pyramid (interested). I’ve seen him linked with Glasgow Rangers at times and there must’ve been a number of Championship clubs hovering around him, a 20-goal-a-season striker and it probably would have been the shape of him and how fat he looks in his kit that puts them off.
When you look at Aaron Collins, he’s the real deal. The kid’s a proper athlete, 12km a game, low body fat and he’s getting better.
This is what lads think, they think if they score goals people will take them but if you don’t look right in your football kit, you won’t play in the modern game, you just won’t. There are too many good athletes out there.
On Saturday, we’ve got the two best strikers in League One in the stadium and I’m not necessarily sure any of them play for Peterborough. I think Josh Coburn’s as good as anyone you’ll see at 19 and he’s going to have a big future in the game, that kid.
Obviously, Clarke-Harris is the top goalscorer and you’ve got the old established man and you’ve got Azza, the new kid on the block, and a young whippersnapper in Coburn, who is as good as anyone with seven games and four goals. He’s 19 playing in League One against Men; I think the kid is going to have a big future.
They are an attacking side with (Ephron) Mason-Clarke and (Ricky) Jade-Jones and Jack Marriot, but we’ve got some good players on the frontline. We’re a good side as well.
Peterborough have historically built their teams around the front side or the wingers, whether it’s (Siriki) Dembele, Clarke-Harris or Marriott, scoring goals because that’s what they do, they build the team around the focal point on the front and then they demand a premium for them in the market and it has been mega successful for them.
Barry Fry is a top football businessman and they have done a phenomenal job at Peterborough with their acquisition of players and then selling them on at a premium further up the chain. They have bounced between League One and the Championship.
For us, we’ve got a slightly different business model. We’ve got a captive audience in terms of a big-city audience and for us I think it’s a good marker post to see whether we are legitimately a top-10 side in the division in the next couple of games.
Joey, is Ryan Loft fully fit and in starting contention?
Yeah, he’s back training. He got through training fine today. It gives us another option.
Is there an updated timeframe for Harry Anderson’s return?
He and Paul Coutts are both feeling fine, albeit there is still a question mark over their return dates. They both feel a lot better than their return dates were, so good news in that way, albeit we haven’t got anything concrete.
Harry has been on a treadmill today so he is moving. Couttsy has been walking around without his boot yesterday and today, but I’m not necessarily sure he’s allowed to. He’s back now after he had a couple of weeks at home with his family.
Finally, are there any updates on the Scott Sinclair situation? The expiration of that contract is looming. Have there been discussions or negotiations on the next steps?
No. We want to keep Scott, we want him to stay part of it. He’s been fantastic.
No doubt, in the next couple of weeks that will progress but as it is, he’s just getting up to speed and he’s in a good situation in terms of he’s in the shop window because he’s playing but also he’s having a settling in period to see if he does really want to be part of it.
I’d keep him beyond certainly the end of this season and beyond that, I’d happy to have him as part of our group for the next period and hopefully he feels the same when we get the chance to sit down and have a chat with him and we get it sorted before the barmy January window opens.
Hi Joey, John Marquis was back last week and we’ve seen Aaron Collins and Josh Coburn work together in a good partnership. What does John now have to do to get in the team because a month is a long time in football and partnerships are being created?
There are going to be loads of games. The boys have got cup competitions coming up and there are going to be opportunities for people to state their case.
Like anything, you want a settled side as a manager and the earlier you find that, the better. For us, it’s about letting the lads go out and compete and trying to keep our standards high, regardless of what XI we put on the pitch and then knowing the five substitutes allow you to finish the game quite strongly.
It’s no coincidence that our best results have come when we’ve had the strongest bench. The stronger the options that you can turn to has been a good indicator of results profile, so we want to difficult decisions to name a squad and name a bench because that usually means the team is in a good spot.
To have Coburn, Loft, Marquis and Collins as four options… I remember last year there were times we didn’t have a recognised striker and it’s been a position we’ve historically struggled at, so I’m not going to moan for having four or five of them with Harvey Saunders in that mix as live options and hopefully we’ve got that for a long part of the season.
Last weekend, Andy Mangan said Antony Evans was in his best position. Do you think this year we are seeing a bit more from his game? Do you think he’s more rounded and has taken on more defensive capabilities?
Yeah, he’s one of those players who started the season a bit slower than what he finished last season. We felt there were reasons for that in terms of COVID in the early part of pre-season just set him back a little bit.
But he’s a player who is relatively new to League One and I think he’s on his way through the adjustment period and in recent weeks and months, we’ve seen flashes of the player we all know Antony can be.
For us, we know he’s a huge player and he will be the first to suggest the best is yet to come from him this season, but we’ve got healthy competition in the squad. Lads are absolutely chomping at the bit to get in and, as I say, with the league and cup competitions coming quite quickly together now, we’re going to get a full look at what everyone is capable of and that will give us a good idea of what we’ve got to do in January, in and out, to keep the momentum of the football club moving in the right direction.
SIGN UP: To receive our free Rovers newsletter, bringing you the latest from the Mem
READ NEXT:
