Walsall (H):Press Conference Notes

[The Joker]

Andy Scott Quotes:
“Disappointed, frustrated. We were better, but it was one mistake again. Two opportunities to clear the ball and we haven’t done it. We didn’t really grab the second half by the scruff of the neck, didn’t step up after the first half.

Our starting positions were a little too deep and we couldn’t join with the front two and were giving the ball away a bit more. We’ve got a new central defensive pairing and a new back four and they have only worked together for one day.

We’re trying to improve the squad and our position in the league. I think for the majority of the game you saw that the players we are bringing in did the right thing and are good players that are going to improve the squad and give us more competition.

It might take a little bit of time and there are going to be periods in games when we are not doing what we’re supposed to, but we need to make sure they are fewer and further between.

Myles had a terrific chance to square it to Charlie just after we got our goal and if we’d got a second I think that would have been a platform for us to go and win by more.

But we didn’t do that. We weren’t as prolific or as dangerous as we have been in the last two games. We didn’t get good enough balls in the box. Very disappointed with our crossing and we hit the first man too many times. When we work hard to get in the final third we need to make the most of it.

But we have young lads who are learning and I think everyone can see the improvement we are making here. We are five points behind Walsall but it didn’t really tell.

We’ve got to finish games off. We’ve got to have a ruthless streak and continue doing what we do to get us into that position in the second half and we didn’t quite do that.

I’ve been talking to the club about moving the dugouts to the middle of the pitch, to help with our input from the side and influence on our team. Certainly in the first half when our back four were in line with us we can hold them and talk to them. In the second half we were a bit detached.

Maybe that is something we can look to do next season. I think sometimes it could be the difference between winning and losing the game. Certainly with young players you need to get information across.

He is a good lad [Szczesny]. He came in yesterday, turned up about lunchtime, came into the office and looked very relaxed. It was comfortable for him and he performed like that today. Coming off the pitch he said he had never kicked the ball so much and I said he’ll have to get used to it!

Certainly his awareness and dominance in the box was excellent. Obviously Lewis Price was ill today so it was important that Szczesny did well for us. He had no chance for the goal, but was great in the first half and came out very quickly and saved it with his head and dominated very well. He’ll get better as he gets to know our back four.

It’s a bit of a toss of a coin when you are chucking people together. Karleigh has done well in the reserves and did very well on Tuesday. We knew that their front two were quick and wanted a bit more pace. We knew their left sided lad would tuck in a bit more so we wanted James to get on the ball and feed John Bostock and we did that in the first half.

In the second half we were too detached from the front two and our midfield players weren’t getting on the ball. But in the first half we looked good going forward.

There are signs we are improving but with a new back four it will take time to gel and we have to accept that.

At the end of it, you’ve got to win games, but I’ll take a scrappy 1-0 at the moment. But you’ve got to take the positives out of it. A couple of weeks ago we said we kept on making mistakes and everyone was a little bit down. But now we’re four games unbeaten and we’ve got to look at that as a positive.

Pim had been out with a groin injury and only trained on Thursday with Ipswich and yesterday with us so wasn’t firing on all cylinders. But I thought he did very well. After the first 10-15 minutes I think he felt his way into it and really became a lot more dominant and found his feet in the game.

The deadline for new loans in on Thursday so we may be looking to bring in another one, but that depends on others going out on loan. We’ve got a squad now where we can probably get 2-3 of the fringe players out on loan. That’s a case of getting them games and back in January to be included with us. We’ve only got one reserve game in December.

We’ve got a squad of 24 players and I chose the side. I thought Kabba came on and did well and has been excellent in training. [Cort] and Saunders didn’t make the bench either. A lot of disappointed people but as long as they take it the right way I’ll understand.

Fortunately as soon as Myles felt his injury he stopped running. So it just tightened up rather than going, which is good. We’ll assess it tomorrow. Those sort of things tend to take a little while to get back to normal.

We’ll be speaking to their clubs this week [the loanees] to see if they can play in the cup. I think it unlikely that Pim will play as he is quite close to their first team.”