After Needham Market's pre-season friendly at home to Maldon + Tiptree (REPORT HERE) on Saturday, I caught up with Assistant Manager Tom Rothery to discuss the game and the remaining friendlies ahead.
DK: Another good pre-season run out today!
TR: Yeah, really hot conditions again, probably hotter than
even we expected it to be. I saw it was going to be about 25, 26 (degrees), but it felt hot, I don't know what it is today, but it felt hot. But yeah, good workout only Dan (Morphew) missing. Obviously still trying to manage players minutes you know, and be a little bit cautious and careful around people, and got a few knocks. But yeah, overall good workout, quite a hard workout! Maldon give us a good game so yeah, box ticked I suppose is the best way to put it.
DK: A nice assist from Patch (Patrick Brothers) for Seth (Chambers)'s goal!
TR: Yeah I said, really Marco (Marcus Garnham) made a couple of really good saves in the first half, but I still felt we had the better of it. I mean we had probably four or five very similar chances, sort of eight, ten, yards from goal where it looks like it's going to (go in), sometimes it weren't the cleanest contact, it looks like he's going to scuff beyond the goalkeeper - he just seemed to seem to stop it with his legs, or his body or whatever, but yeah I thought overall we had the better chances. I thought it was quite an even gain really, wasn't too much in it, but you know I thought we did well at times. There's still things that we need to do better, obviously, but that's the whole point of pre-season. You know we're not going to be the finished article now. So yeah, it's not settled down still, which is really frustrating, I said last week before, it would be settled down by even Tuesday, but definitely by the
the game today and it still hasn't. And again like I said last week pre-season is just false. You've got Archie (Exworth) and Louie (McDonagh) have come on for the last few minutes to help them (Maldon) out. Keiran (Morphew)'s come off at half time, nothing wrong with him, but did, I mean you don't do that in the end game. It just changes the flow of the game. I decided first half I'm going to play a certain formation, second half I'm going to play the old formation. You wouldn't do that in a league game, because if things aren't working you change it, so there is always that falseness in pre-season. Again, I said last week you should never get over excited you should never get too down beat. Look, there's still things that we need to improve on, there's things that you can see coming together, and there's things that you can see that we still need to work on. So it is what it is, but yeah we're heading the right way! What was pleasing, and obviously, they only had 12 players, that's why Archie and Louie helped them out in the end, but I still felt our fitness was really good at the end, because actually I thought there were good spells in that in that part, when we moved Trialist10 over to the left especially. I thought we started getting a lot of good crosses in the box, so fitness is not too far off where we want to be really, so that's good.
Seth Chambers scores the winner against Maldon.
DK: As you say today was the closest we've had to our
most probable 11 for when we go to Rushden.
TR: I wouldn't say necessarily the 11, because there's players in there that had to get minutes today so they started - they wouldn't necessarily start yet in the league, so no it wasn't. I said that to the players before, Fitzy (Tom Fitzgerald) and Taylor (Clark), for example, have had a lot more minutes than other players - so that's why Fitzy and Taylor didn't start, but Noah for example didn't need minutes. Patch (Patrick Brothers) needed minutes, so there were other players, Hammo (Kyle Hammond) missed last week, so there were other players that had to get minutes today, more than certain other players, so I wouldn't say that's close to our starting 11 - but it was it was better not having as many players away, obviously there was only Dan away and *Trialist*' got an injury obviously, so yeah but other than that everyone was available.
DK: It can be slightly frustrating in that sense when...
TR: It's really frustrating, really frustrating, I feel like the last three weeks me and Kevin have had so many messages and phone calls about players, and trying to get them signing, and that's why I hate pre-season! You know, come August 6th, and look there'll always be changes after August the 6th, but you know come August that's your squad, and then when players leave or players come in, it just gets done. You don't spend weeks and weeks, and weeks, discussing with them and trying to negotiate - it just either happens or it doesn't! So, from that point of view like I said again today, even though I thought it was a good workout, I still don't like it! Today you know the players are not always, even though I feel there's a lot of players out there that are giving 100%, you're not going to give a hundred, you're not going to be full quote. Because, it is pre-season, like I said you're making false changes you're playing around with tactics and shape. And like I said last week, you've got to do it, because you've got to get ready for August 6th, but regardless what goes on in pre-season, all that's important is that on august the 6th we've got who we've got signed on. Me and Kev will know on that given day, what our best what our best starting 11 is, which obviously will change at various times during the season, and what our best shape is. And I believe we'll be at that place on August 6th, so that's all that needs to happen really. But yeah I'll be well and truly glad when the pre-season's over, because I've just never liked it, I hate it.
DK: We'll just hope and see!
TR: Obviously we started with a different shape first half, but you need options, you play this shape, that's whatever, but you need options! Obviously Luke he's had his surgery, he'll be back September time, so he can play through the middle or out wide obviously so that will give us another option. And obviously a very good option when he's back, but you know before he comes back, we need at least one more. I mean ideally, if I'm being brutally honest, I want two, because you need competition. You don't want anyone getting complacent, I don't think that will happen anyway with the players that we've got, but you just need that competition through your team.
DK: In my opinion, this is like the strongest and best competition for places, we've had at this club, and the best. No offense to the lads like Seth, they they deserve this chance to come through, and they've taken it, but also on the other hand, it's good to have those...
TR: You need players that can have played this level, you need senior players, you need that competition within the squad. And I think with the younger players what needs to happen, because younger players need to gain experience and they don't need to be thrown in at the deep end, so they need at times to play, at times to be in the squad, at times they'll need to come out of the squad to get minutes. So we'll just have to see how that goes really.
DK: On to Tuesday's game, any bit of certain team news?
TR: Dan still won't be back. *Trialist's* 10 days, so he's seen Jenks today. Dan is the only other one.
DK: Perfect, so yeah, all in all it's looking very positive, and hopefully we can start the season in a better way than we did last year.
TR: That's the plan mate!
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