Goalkeeper Alex Cairns sat down with the press ahead of Fleetwood Town’s Sky Bet League One clash against Wigan Athletic at the DW Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
Cairns has recently had a spell out of the team after contracting the Covid virus but, after serving his isolation period, is back training with the team and can’t wait to get back onto the pitch.
The goalkeeper is now hoping to make his debut under interim head coach Simon Wiles in the Latics clash on the weekend.
Here is what Alex had to say:
On being back with the squad...
“I’m still a kid when it comes to football, when it comes to playing, I absolutely love it. I want to play to the best of my ability. It’s me and Joel [Coleman] now fighting for a position, with Jayson [Leutwiler] leaving. It’s a position both of us want to take and that healthy competition will only help us.
“The people in charge are the ones who pick the team at the end of the day and you want them to have full confidence in you. If they have that in you, it only propels you further on. I’ve spoke to him throughout his [Simon Wiles] time at the football club and he’s always been brilliant.
“There’s always going to be a transition period between what the new manager wants to implement and what is still around from the old regime. I think, us as a group of players, have to be accountable for things and have to do it on the pitch. Everyone in our dressing room wants to succeed and push themselves to be better.”
On his recent absence…
“I’ve been isolating as I got diagnosed with Covid so it has been hard for my family, with my girlfriend and little girl being stuck in the house in isolation. Watching the lads play and train was hard, not being able to go into the training ground and bounce off them was hard – it was a testing time.
“Regardless of what happened, I was playing in the Hull game due to the games I had played in the progression in the cup, so I was really excited. I had trained two days previous but to get hit with that, I couldn’t believe it. The main thing is that I’m fine, my family’s fine and the people around me are fine.
“The whole experience, for me, was as okay and it could have been but, I’m excited to be back and I am looking forward to getting going again.”