Ahead of Saturday’s clash against Wigan Athletic, Dave Challinor has called for his squad to strive for improvement, even though he admits there were ‘two good results’ following the club’s 1-1 draw at Barnsley and 2-0 win away to Shrewsbury Town on Tuesday night.
When asked what these improvments were, the gaffer said:
“We aren’t gonna go from being not the finished article in possession, and out of possession, and in transition, and set pieces, to all of a sudden solving every equation. We’ve got to see shoots of improvement, which we have, we just need to do it more consistently but that won’t change, and I think what we have to look at is we still want to win football matches. Probably more than ever, the belief is that the performances will give us a better chance of doing that on a consistent basis and will make us better across the season.”
The manager also spoke about Fraser Horsfall, who had a standout performance on Tuesday, as well as the step up to League One football this season for him and the rest of the defence:
“Like I said in the start, I think we all have something to prove. So, he’s (Fraser) sitting in a very similar boat to all of us, but I thought defensively as a back-three, back-four, whatever you want it to be in a certain situation, we defended moments well, we gave up opportunities by not defending well, Tayo didn’t defend a moment and Fraser had to block. On another day, that could go in and you give a team that has been struggling a little bit a leg up and an uncomfortable evening for us. But there’ll be different challenges throughout the course of the season, against different opposition.”
“That’ll continue to be the case but at the moment we’ve defended well, the individuals defended well but again we have to get that consistency, because go back to two weeks previously, Ethan, probably had one of his best games he’s had for us at Crawley in terms of his defending, but a week later against Leyton Orient probably one of his worst. He was back to himself a little bit on Tuesday, and long may that continue. The same can be said for Fraser, you have to be able to perform on a consistent basis whilst also thinking you’ve got something to prove, to right any doubters.”
Cahllinor confirmed that Will Collar will be out of contention for Saturday’s fixture, but provided a positive update on Macauley Southam-Hales, confirming he has been back in light training and possibly up for selection in two to three weeks as well as Ryan Rydel and Will Collar.
With so many players available, the gaffer spoke of the importance of every memeber of the squad being ‘ready to go’ as any success this season will be due to the strength in depth that County possess, adding:
“You have to be able to rotate, you have to be able to rest players around things that they’ve done. We’ve still got lads coming back from injuries that haven’t kicked a ball since pre-season. We have to be careful with those things, but I get that everyone wants to play every game, we’re all competitive. We all feel that the finish to a week will be a Saturday, and what part you can play on that Saturday, and for some that’s been minimal, which I get can be frustrating.”
You can watch the managhers full pre-match interview here along with his analysis of Saturday’s opponents Wigan Athletic and further in depth discussion about County’s start to the season.
