After suffering their first league defeat of the season last week to Leyton Orient, Dave Challinor is hopeful his side can put things right ahead of their match on Saturday night at Oakwell.
When asked about Saturday’s 4-1 defeat at Edgeley Park, the gaffer hoped it is something that can be learned from, with a busy schedule ahead for County.
“The bit where collectively we need to be better on the pitch is to make that decision of how we regain or gain momentum in the game. I just thought we needed to play a little bit, a little bit over them, a little bit longer, a little bit more forward, and put them on the back foot. Earn the right a little bit and buy ourselves some space in the in the middle part of the pitch.
“Once we did that, we had some opportunities, and we get ourselves back in the game and then shoot ourselves in the foot with the third goal. I said after the game, it’s still the case that losing football matches is not something we want to do, but if there is learning from it, and if there is understanding from it, then it will make us better. And hopefully we’ll see that this week, with three games in a in a week. A big opportunity for us, but a big challenge as well.”
The manager also talked about the vast options he now has available and the difficulty of building a winning team with so many different player profiles to choose from.
“We want to have consistency and continuity in terms of in terms of our lineups, but we have different types of players for different types of games. So, the big example will be in those inverted forward positions, be it as wide players in a 4-3-3, or in a 3-4-3, so we have a Fevs, Jack Diamond, Louie, that are dribbling types, or wingers, if you like, who will be inverted and will go and try to isolate people 1v1 and be positive and run in behind. We also have ten types in Lewis Fiorini, Will, Odin, Powelly, Campsy, all of whom can come and play in there, and are more pocket players that will look after the ball probably a little bit more..”
“But like I said right at the start, it isn’t going to be a case of going, ‘Oh, bad game, bad result. Change the team completely’. Because if that happens like I say, I think we end up in a in a bad situation. People won’t just get one opportunity. It won’t just be, ‘oh, that’s it, you’re out. Next one in’. Because that’s not what forms successful teams.
“Everybody will play their part. Everybody will get an opportunity, but they need to be wary or understanding that when the opportunity comes, they’re not just going to be changed for no reason, unless we feel it’s the best thing to do for the situation we’re going into, in terms of the opponents we’re playing against.”
It was also announced on Friday afternoon that Jack Stretton would be joining National League side Oldham Athletic on loan until January. Challinor was pleased with the move for Stretts and an opportunity to regain his fitness and form, stating:
“Hopefully it’s game time straight away for him, but he’s going into a team that compete in the play-off positions in the National League, so he might have to be a little bit patient. But minutes for him, and minutes on the pitch playing in a team that’s being competitive, will be massively important, and hopefully he’ll get back to the form he showed before his injury.”
You can watch the manager’s full pre-match interview here, where he also gave updates on Jay Mingi, Ryan Rydel, Macauley Southam-Hales and Kyle Knoyle, along with his thoughts on the challenge against Barnsley.
