Head Coach speaks ahead of the clash with his former club
Good evening and welcome to Highbury for my first home game in charge of Fleetwood Town.First of all I’d like to thank everyone involved with the club, the staff, the players and the supporters for the welcome I’ve received during my first week in charge.
The response from everyone has been brilliant and it’s made settling in easy, it’s this sort of environment which attracted me to the challenge here at Fleetwood.
After being contacted by the club about the role, the enthusiasm of the Chairman and the Technical Director really impressed me, I think these are people who share my thinking and ambition about what we want to achieve in my time here.
Talking of that, you may have read in the media my intention to create a top six mentality at the club, every day in training and on match days.
The top six is a target I think we can all achieve together, but in the long-term, it’s not something I’m expecting to happen this season.
Here at Fleetwood we have a club of real potential with excellent foundations, but it’s a project which now needs time, patience and a lot of hard work. If we do that over the next few years then the aim will be to eventually challenge the top six.
I’d like to welcome the staff, supporters and directors of Leeds United to Highbury this evening.
It’s funny how football throws up these sort of fixtures and my first home game at Fleetwood comes against my former club.
While at Elland Road I met a lot good people, both there and at the training ground, and it was a real honour to manage such a big historic club.
I wish Gary Monk all the best for the coming season and obviously I still have a lot of feelings for my ex-players and the supporters and hope they can continue to improve and eventually win promotion back to the Premier League.
For us welcoming such a big club to Highbury shows just how far the club have come in the last ten years and it’s our strong intention that this sort of occasion will be a more regular occurrence in the future.
I hope you enjoy the game, atmosphere and our performance this evening and I’m sure our players will give everything they have to cause a cup upset and progress to the next round.
Enjoy the game.