Joey, a quick one on squad news. Any bumps and bruises or anything picked up over the past few days that’s going to be a problem for Saturday?
No, we’re OK. We’re hoping to get one or two back into consideration for the weekend who missed the game last week, in terms of Josh Grant.
Apart from that. We’ve got a good complement of players ready to go and looking forward to the game on Saturday.
What was the issue with Josh?
He just felt a little bit of soreness in and around his hamstring. We brought him back in for two key games and spiked his load a little bit, but we felt it was necessary with the importance of the fixtures. That took its toll into the game last week.
I do feel in terms of the squad, the whole group, everybody is chomping at the bit wanting to play and for us, it’s really nice to have those options.
Sam Finley is on 13 yellow cards. Is that something that’s in your mind, bearing in mind the season could get extended?
We are aware of that. Two games to go and if he picks up two bookings then that could affect us if we further extend our season, but as it is we mightn’t extend our season if we don’t field full-strength teams in these two games.
For us, it’s about taking care of the next challenge, which is Rochdale. We’re well aware that they’ve got a fantastic home record, especially against the sides at the top of the division. Away from home, I think they’ve struggled a bit hence the position they are in the league. We know just what a difficult game it will be at Rochdale’s stadium on Saturday.
For us, we want our strongest team on the pitch. Sam is a player who has got a number of bookings, but for us, it’s about dealing with the one game in front of us. If he picks up a yellow card in that then, depending on the result, it may change what we do in the Scunthorpe game, but as it is he’s got 13 bookings and we’ll be picking our strongest team.
You’ve been very consistent about taking it one game at a time. Now they are starting to run out, is that maintained? Do you have the same focus or do you have to accept that for all the teams at the top of the table there’s a little bit more on these matches now?
I think you saw on Saturday for us, whether you want to accept what’s going on or not and what’s at stake, it doesn’t actually permeate players’ minds in the building.
People are aware of what’s at stake and that brings a kind of pressure towards it, but I always see that as a real privilege. To have the season we’ve had and have the expectation and the excitement that we’ve now got there, for me that’s what you do it for.
The other side of that is if you have nothing to play for at this stage and you’re thinking about where you’re going to go on holiday in the summer and what kind of things you’re going to do with that leisure time the players get, and it’s only a small six or eight-week window of off-season, a chance to reset and put targets in and work on your body or the stuff that hasn’t made you successful and get better. Many teams will be in that frame of mind now, but the teams at the top and bottom have still got everything to play for.
For me, we experienced the opposite end of the spectrum last year and it’s not nice at all and it does bring an angst or nervousness and it should do because people can lose their jobs. It’s not nice stuff to be part of a relegated team and a relegated group.
The other pressure is the real nice stuff because if we don’t get it done, then we’ve still had a really good moment in the year and won 20-odd games and we’re failing trying to summit a mountain rather than falling off and getting relegated.
A different type of pressure, but again some types of pressure I feel you really want and you should move towards and chase it down your whole life. Other types of pressure, if you can not have them and avoid them for your whole career then it would be wise to do so.
But for us, we’ve got to see this as a real privilege.
The start of games is always important. Mid-table sides with nothing to play for may have a bit of freedom, but if you put them on the back foot early how likely are they to dig in? Are the starts of games more relevant now than in the start of December?
I don’t think you come into a football match where teams don’t have much to play for because you’re always wanting to do well for your own professional pride. You want to do well because you don’t know who is watching the game in the stands, whether that’s family members or scouts of other clubs.
Also, you get paid and you have a professional responsibility to your manager, teammates and the fans to give your absolute maximum, so for me, they can be tricky because people naturally think someone’s not quite going to be at it.
The absence of pressure for lots of players can really help them and the reason people play at the levels they play at is because some can handle pressure and some can’t. Every single training ground up and down the country, there’ll be lots of brilliant players during the week and when you put a crowd in and points on the line, pressure can affect them usually for the negative. In lots of cases for the positive also.
They’re tricky games, they’re dangerous games. We know Rochdale are a good side from when we played them at our place. Robbie Stockdale will have them at it, they will want to continue their good form at home and spoil any ambition or momentum we have because they’re professional men and they’ll be giving their absolute all for their club and for their team.
We expect the best version of them. We know we’ll be in for a tough game if we’re not absolutely wired in and out our best.
It looks like we’re going to have another big away contingent. We’re approaching 2,000 travelling Gasheads.
We’ve got to focus on us and be the best version of us. If we do that, I think we’ve shown we can be more than a match for anybody in the division and I think we’ve got to expect Robbie and the Rochdale lads to be at their absolute best.
We’ll be preparing for that because they’re a professional group and they’ll be wanting, for their own reasons, to finish their season as positively as they can.
The fans made a helluva noise at Port Vale and it does to be the more hardcore ones than go away from home. Can they play a part in this 90 minutes that could be a big part of what you do this season?
Yeah, we’ve benefitted enormously from the fantastic support we’ve had all season. I said that even when we weren’t doing well.
There were times when they held us accountable because they knew they’d travelled in their numbers and we didn’t want to disappoint them or let them down.
Gradually as the season has built and the momentum wave has built, the rapport between players and fans has grown enormously.
The fact they’ve travelled the length and breadth of the country speaks volumes because, without them, I don’t think we’d have been anywhere near as successful as we have in recent months.
I look back to the Swindon game when we weren’t riding the crest of a wave and I think there were three-odd-thousand there. That was a real momentum shift for us. I think back to Walsall, I think back to Exeter away when we were dreadful and the Gasheads haven’t come up short for the group in any match.
They’ve travelled in ridiculous numbers, given such good support to the players and all we want to do is keep making them want to be at games, keep making them travel in the numbers they are and keep making the noise they do because they are proud of the players who are pulling on the quarters.
For me, we want to give them success and a great football team. Without them, we’re just another football club, we’re just another team. With them, they give us something special and we witnessed that last time out at Port Vale.
I’m hoping on Saturday they are there in their numbers again and I’m hoping we can give them another really good, positive performance and hopefully take maximum points.
Good afternoon, Joey. It’s simplistic to say there was one turning point in your season, as there were quite a few moments that got you on track. Rochdale definitely was one of those. It was the start of your unbeaten run at home and it was a real ding-dong game that tested your mettle. You went two up, back 2-2 and losing Connor Taylor at half time, but you came through that strongly at the end. That was a big moment in your season, wasn’t it?
Yeah. I could point to 80 others, there’s so many, and there always is so many moments in a season that you look back at once the dust settles. In the summer break, you look back and think ‘God, that was a sliding doors moment’. We’d be here all day if we were talking about them.
We managed to win the game 4-2 having been in a commanding position. We lost Connor Taylor who was doing a good job against the boy who has gone to Blackpool, Jake Beesley, who was quite well thought of and has got himself to the Championship now and made an impact there.
He was probably playing above the quality of the division at the time. We were not to know that. We felt he was a good player. When Connor went off, Pablo Martinez went on and in destabilised the team. He tried manfully, Pabs, but he made a rash decision and gave a penalty away, which put us on the back foot.
We had to win that game twice. Harry Anderson got us back in it and we pushed on again.
It was another key indicator of the character of our group and another moment where chips were down. The group the year before would have probably lost that game due to the culture, but they were really positive signs for the new group that was emerging and the character that was coming out of the team.
We managed to win and we’ve built a really good home record since. I don’t think we’ve lost since early December at home and we’ve conceded three goals or something like that in that time. We’ve managed to turn the Memorial Stadium into a really difficult place for opposing teams to come.
The challenge for us was making sure the away form matched the home form.
I’d take a positive result at Rochdale. If we can manage to close out the away part of the season in a positive fashion, it gives us a right chance of having a say for the last automatic spot that it looks like five or six of us are going for.
You’ve made clear over the weeks that the vast majority of your preparation is based on yourselves, but what you have seen from Rochdale, how much have the departures of Jake Beesley and Aaron Morely affected them? At the time, they were an interesting team creating lots of chances. How have they changed since you faced them back then?
They’re playing 3-4-3, a similar theme to last time. Obviously, Morely and Beesley departing will be disappointing for them because they were two quality players for Rochdale and quality players in League Two.
But people have come into their side and they’ve been given an opportunity. They’ll be desperate to take it.
It looks like Rochdale will consolidate after getting relegated last season along with us. They’ve had a trickier task this year and for them, it will be building on consolidating in League Two this season.
But don’t forget, we’ll be an acid test for them because they’ll be saying to their group this is a team chasing promotion and they will want to benchmark how far or how close they are to us.
The manager will probably be talking about people who want to be there beyond this year and it will be a shop window for those boys, either for their manager that they’re playing in front of, or if they’re out of contract and they’ve got opportunities in the summer then they’ll want the Wyscout clips and all the footage to be as good as it can.
We don’t think it will be an easy game. It will be a really tough game. They’ve got a blueprint of what they want to try to do and they will try to play.
They’ve got the lad who played for Celtic, Eoghan O’Connell, in the centre of the back three. A really competent footballer, a quarterback who starts lots of attacks for them and if we don’t police it correctly, they are a team like us who like to dominate the ball, keep the ball, so we need to make sure we are patient when we are trying to build our press and also when we do get the ball back we cherish it and try to take care of it in the right areas because Rochdale are a possession team and they can take the ball off you, which is a huge part of their attacking arsenal.
How has Leon Clarke’s recovery progressed since we last spoke?
He’s not as bad as first feared. He won’t come into the matchday squad and he isn’t back out on the grass yet.
He will probably be reliant on the season extending to make an impact. He’s disappointed to be missing games but is working his way back into contention.
Jon Nolan has only made one appearance for the club so far. Is there a chance he could feature in the last two games or if the season is extended?
He’s been training for the past three weeks, but again such is the competition for places in that midfield area, we’re already moving them out of the centre because we’ve got more than three good players if we’re playing 4-3-3.
He’s training and he’s itching (to play). Alex Rodman is the same, Sion Spence is the same, but we’ve got more than 11 good players, we’ve got more than 18 good players. Competition is high just to get in the matchday squad at the minute.
Jon is making good progress but opportunities for him to get in the first team are going to be tricky because we’ve got load of quality in those positions.
Beyond this season, what does his future look like at Bristol Rovers?
I think it’s unfair to talk about that at this moment. We want to get the season finished.
For me, it was a good opportunity to have a good look at Jon. He’s come in and it hasn’t gone as well as he’d have hoped. He’s only managed to make one appearance, but for us to see what he is capable of and watch him train gives us a good benchmark for where he is.
A lot of that will be depending on how our season finishes, where we are, what we have available, what strategy we decide to take depending on what the challenge is next year.
But I’m really pleased with the fact he’s been able to train for the last two or three weeks with the group and it will be interesting to see if he can throw his cap in the ring to make an impact between now and the season’s end. Don’t forget, we could have five games left here. We could also only have two, so it’s a tricky time to predict anything at the minute, things are out of your own hands and it’s never nice when you don’t control your own destiny.
Hi Joey, I know you spoke on Saturday that the individual awards do not matter. Connor Taylor missed out on his award on Sunday. Was there any dejection for him or did he get on with business as usual? Do you think he was deserving of the award?
There’s a panel to decide that, it’s not my job. My job is to make Bristol Rovers win football matches.
It was nice for him to be recognised. I think it’s always nice to be on shortlists and it shows that people are aware of the progress you’ve made.
You’ll have to ask him. I imagine he has taken it in his stride like he does anything else. I wouldn’t say he was disappointed, or he certainly hasn’t shown that.
But again, individual awards… I was surprised we didn’t have anybody in there (the team of the season) but then I realised it’s not the one for us. I feel bad saying ‘the proper one’, but the proper one for the players is the one voted for by your peers, which tends to be the PFA one.
I think that carries a bit more weight with the players, no disrespect to you journalists but the journalist ones, they’re nice when you get them and any trophy you get is nice, even if it’s clubman of the year or whatever it is.
But there are other trophies for me and I think the PFA Player of the Year is the one all the players look to and go ‘That’s my peer group saying I was that’ and that would carry enormous weight.
I do think at the end of the season when the players all vote on their teams, I know there is a bit of strategic voting that goes in, but I always thing the team of the year that’s voted for by the players carries a bit more weight because they’ve shared the arena with each other.
They are nice. I think they were EFL awards the other day. I don’t know who is voting on them or what the criteria is for them. Congratulations for anyone that gets in them, they’re always nice, but the ultimate award is a promotion at the end of the season. There’s no trophy the EFL or PFA would give you that would be better than a promotion.
That’s what you start out a season trying to achieve and if you get a few nice individual mementos or individual awards, it can’t do anything but help somebody’s confidence, but if you don’t get them it doesn’t mean you’re dejected. It means you need to get better, you need to improve.
Were you on iFollow this week to see how the other teams were doing?
Nah, we can’t affect that. I fancied them all to win. Every result went the way I thought it’d go.
I thought Swindon would beat Forest Green. They got promoted against us and they probably had one too many Babychams afterwards. It was always going to be tricky with Swindon pretty much having to win that game to keep control of their own destiny.
All the other teams, Mansfield and Sutton, I felt they would win.
It’s nice to look at the table now and know how the land lies. We can see the table now and everybody knows who they’ve got to play, when they’ve got to play them and have played an equal amount of games.
Everybody knows what they’ve got to do and for us it’s about winning the next game. If we win two games, we give ourselves the best opportunity we can of getting that third automatic promotion spot. That mightn’t be enough, we might win both games and that’s not enough and so be it. Then we’ll be in the play-offs and we’ll have to see who we play, how the table pans out and we’ll make a choice from there.
On the other side of that, if we don’t win the next two games then we could well miss out on the play-offs. It’s a strange one with two to play, but all to gain and also if we’re not careful and we get complacent, we could have it all to lose as well.
I’m hoping for a positive result and a positive performance on Saturday and we’ll see where we are after the results are in.
Lastly, in a situation like this, a high-pressure situation, do you ever find yourself using external people? Do you ever seek the help of a psychologist or is the motivation just that promotion is there and you can go and get it?
Yeah, you do all different weird and whacky things over a season to move the group. At this moment, I think we’re in really good fettle.
I’m really happy with the lads, they know what’s at stake, they’re excited about the next few weeks might hold for us and it’s all out in front of us.
Our season is yet to be defined, but certainly, in the next period it’s going to have the bells and whistles put on it or it’s not. I’m looking forward to that.
We’ve got enough motivation in the building to seek outside influence, but we pray every single day and we ask the big fella upstairs to lend us a hand. So far, he’s been quite forthcoming with his help for our team.
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