Fleetwood Town’s Assistant Manager, Craig Madden, gave an honest analysis of Friday night’s home defeat to League One side Oldham Athletic
By David Mitchell
Fleetwood Town’s Assistant Manager, Craig Madden, gave an honest analysis of Friday night’s home defeat to League One side Oldham Athletic:
‘I was pleased with our second half performance but the first half was unacceptable. To say we were bad would be an understatement. We were off the ball and off the pace.’
‘The manager made his views clear at half time and we made several changes after the break when we started moving the ball around a bit, putting them under some pressure. We won the second half one nil but if you’re going into it three goals down the game’s effectively over.’
‘The manner of the goals conceded was disappointing. They were turning our defenders too easily, running off our midfield players. We didn’t concede goals like that last season so there’s a lot of work to do and a little bit of soul searching as well. We’ve had to nail the message home that this is going to be a tough season.’
‘Youl (Mawéné) looked comfortable on his debut. He’s an experienced player. I also thought Kinsella did well in midfield and Barry Nicholson gave us that bit of energy when he came on. We closed people down better after the break, something that we are normally good at. It was nice to get a goal as we had four or five chances on Tuesday and didn’t convert them. To be a good side, though, it’s not just about running with the ball. The hard graft is needed.’
‘We are missing four key players who would probably start normally – Barry, Gillespie, Johnson and Parkin - but that’s by the by. The fact is that we’ve put a squad together to do well for the club and we need people to be stamping their mark on pre-season.’
The next stage of preparation takes the players north of the border for three days from Sunday:
‘We’ll be working hard on fitness in Scotland and having a game against Kilmarnock behind closed doors,’ said Madden. ‘It gives us a chance to split pre-season up a bit so we’re not going to the same place all the time. The players need to understand that these are things we are trying to do to help them. We’ll be looking for a reaction from them now because we can’t have another performance like that against Oldham.’
Town return from Scotland to prepare for their next game, at home to manager Micky Mellon’s former club, Tranmere Rovers, on Saturday 4th August, kick off 3:00 p.m.
