Head Coach Simon Grayson spoke to the media ahead of his side’s Sky Bet League One clash against Plymouth Argyle at Home Park on Saturday.
Grayson saw his side come away with their first three points of the season in the last outing, which was against Cheltenham at Highbury last Saturday.
Tom Clarke opened the scoring and even though Callum Wright and Alfie May found the back of the net for the visitors, goals from Darnell Johnson and Shayden Morris secured the win for the Cods on the day.
Here's what Simon had to say in his pre-match press conference:
On Saturday’s win over Cheltenham…
“I think most people came through the game last weekend in healthy spirits and the bodies are fine. It gave us the opportunity this week to rest one or two who have been having a heavy workload and get some work onto the training pitch into the lads who have probably needed it.
“On Saturday night I mentioned that Brad Halliday was going to be out for the rest of the season with his ACL. That’s devastating news for Brad but for us as well because he’s done ever so well for us, settled in really well and to suffer such a bad injury so early in the season is hard to accept, but he’s in good spirits, he’s in good hands and he’ll come back strong physically and mentally for it.
“First and foremost, we’d have still loved to have been in the cup competition on Tuesday night but that didn’t happen but this week has given us the opportunity to work on a little bit of fitness for some lads who are still not up to speed after injuries in pre-season. A clear week is pleasing sometimes as we can work on things we still need to improve on.”
On the opposition…
“On Friday, a long journey down there on a bank holiday weekend. Our preparation will be good, and we certainly won’t use the excuse of a long journey for the result at the weekend.
“Plymouth have had some good results, most notably beating Shrewsbury 3-0 last week so it was a tough place to go.
“They play some good football which is pleasing on the eye, but we’ll go there and be respectful of the opposition, learn from what we needed to do better over the last few weeks and again, be ruthless in both boxes and hopefully come away with three points and a clean sheet.”
On international call ups…
“I think James Hill’s Under-20s call up is massive for everybody connected with this football club, and for James and his family a very proud moment. I pulled him downstairs and told him and there was probably nearly a tear in his eye because being called up for England at whatever level it is and he was absolutely made up when I passed on the news so that’s great from his perspective.
“In terms of the football club it’s brilliant because the owner has got a model in which he wants to develop the players, he wants to educate them in the right way, we want to move them forward, develop them and ultimately there will be no bigger amount of pride you can have when a player gets called up for their country.
“We’ve also got some Under-21s going away with Northern Ireland as well and that speaks volumes of where this football club is and what this process is at Poolfoot that has happened. Hopefully, this is the first of many call ups for him and I’m sure there might be others that are pushing him very closely with other call ups.”