Winger Paddy Lane sat down with the media on Thursday afternoon and previewed Fleetwood Town’s trip to face Accrington Stanley in a Lancashire derby at Wham Stadium.
Lane, who is currently sitting on five assists for the season so far, has had a brilliant start to life on the Fylde Coast after netting against Cambridge United and has since become a regular for both the first-team and Northern Ireland’s Under-21s setup. He will be looking to add to his tally at the weekend against John Coleman’s side.
Here’s what Paddy had to say ahead of the game:
On Town’s local derby against Accrington…
“Every game that you play in is massive, and to add on that it’s a local derby, it makes it that bit bigger, so we need to go there and get three points to kickstart our season again. We had a good positive result last week that we can build, and I think now is our time to start winning games.
“It will be a good game and a good test; we are just focusing on doing what we are doing on the training pitch and will take those lessons into the game on Saturday.
“The point against Wimbledon was a big one, since we’ve been going through some changes and, as I’ve said, it’s a performance we can build on. Everyone to a man that came on to the pitch was good. If we can build on that, hopefully, we can push for three points at the weekend.”
On his relationship with Stephen Crainey…
“The work that we’ve been doing on the training pitch with Baz [Nicholson] and Crainzo [Stephen Crainey] has been brilliant. I was with them last year, so I know what they’re all about so the transition hasn’t been too bad. We just need to start getting results, not just for us, but for them and the fans as well.
“All the staff have been brilliant with me, from Crainz to Baz, and even the old coaching staff, they were all superb and I think that they saw my strengths as well as what I needed to work on and we’ve been working on them day in, day out.”
“Everyone at the club knows what Crainz expects from his players, we see that on the training picth and I think everyone else saw it in the game against Wimbledon and again on Tuesday night. The boys were unfortunate not to get a result there – we are just wanting to put everything from the training pitch into practice now.”
On his last 12 months…
“Sometimes, I try not to look back on it as I don’t want to get too caught up in it. I just want to keep going as high as I can and just keep performing as I have done recently. I’m far from the finished product, the work has to continue, and the big thing now is to try and start getting those results.
“If someone would have told me the situation I would be in whilst in the thick of Covid last year, I would have burst out laughing, but I’ve loved every opportunity I’ve been given so far. I just want to keep getting the stats up, the games in, and carry on helping the team wherever I can.
“The start was tough, when I came in on trial, you could see there was a massive difference and I had to adapt to that quite quickly, but you have to adapt quickly and I was able to do that when I came in the building.”