Fleetwood Town striker Paddy Madden spoke to the media at Poolfoot farm ahead of this weekend’s home match against Scunthorpe United.
Fleetwood Town welcome Madden’s former side Scunthorpe to the Fylde Coast, with the Cod Army looking to to recreate a similar performance to when they last met at Glanford Park, with Town coming out 5-0 winners!
Madden played the full 90 minutes as Joey Barton’s men beat AFC Wimbledon 3-0 in midweek, and that result will allow the lads to look for back to back wins in the league for the first time since October.
Here’s what he had to say ahead of the game…
On the game versus his former club, and their current position…
“They’re obviously in a good spell where they’re picking up some points and good results. They’ve strengthened in January which will be good for their squad, but at the start of the season, they didn’t start off great but they’re a good side Scunthorpe, with good players so we’ll expect a tough test.
“They lost a few good players last year which knocked them back a bit, but they’ve recruited well and I expect them to go on a little bit of a charge, they won’t get play- offs this year I wouldn’t have thought, but I can expect them to push up the table.
“Obviously, I had a lot of good times down there and I’ve got a good relationship with the fans and anyone who is still at the club. I’m looking forward to seeing them at the weekend.”
On the competition in the squad in attacking places…
“With myself over the years, I have thrived off more competition and I do believe it’s always good to have competition. It’s good for the personality of the squad, and generally the whole team does better in the season if that competition is there.
“It’s great to have Nadders [Ashley Nadesan] back. He has done fantastically well since coming back into the team, and with pure pace he has, we are aware he’ll get onto anything played in behind the back line.
“For Ash [Ashley Hunter] to come off the bench and score his goal against Wimbledon will give him confidence, and with Ched [Evans] getting another two goals, it’s good to score a lot of goals with the frontmen.”
On the potential of getting a play-off place…
“We don’t want to sound too cliché, but we’ve got to take each game as it comes at the time but I’ve been in this league for years, I know how it works where if you hit a run at the right time, you look at a lot of teams that have gone up through the play-offs.
“We don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves but it would be silly not too fancy ourselves and sneak a play-off spot, that’s what we’re here to do, to beat teams, to challenge teams- you’ll need to have that positive mindset.
“Obviously with the characters we have in this squad they all want to win, and when people do write us off, me personally, when people write me off I always try and prove them wrong.
"It’s the same situation when in the bookies, we were favourite to go down with relegation but we end up getting in the play offs, you know it’s the highs and lows of football, but me personally I’m looking at them play-offs and to suck a few teams back in where I think you’ll need that winning mentality.”
On the win in midweek against Wimbledon…
“If you look at the table it seems we’ve jumped about 4 spots I think to eighth, so I think there’s a lot of positivity to take out of that. It’s important that we don’t get too ahead of ourselves as we need to show that we can hit a consistent run, and really start climbing the table.
“I think we need to show that with the teams we play that we show we have a great shape, and a great will to win which we showed the other day. The lads played with great energy which I am sure we can take in against Scunthorpe.
“We could have gone on and scored more last time we played them, but clean sheets breed confidence in any team. If we go into this weekend with the same confidence, I’m sure we can get something out of it.”