Interim Head Coach Stephen Crainey spoke to the media for the first time after getting the role on Thursday afternoon, ahead of Fleetwood Town’s trip to face AFC Wimbledon at the weekend.
The 40-year-old took charge of the first-team with immediate effect on Wednesday and held his initial training session with the full group the day after.
Crainey, who played for the club in 2014, has been at Highbury Stadium for the past four years in charge of the U23s side. Playing a huge role in the development of the likes of James Hill, Jay Matete, Shayden Morris, and Ged Garner.
Here’s what Stephen had to say in his first interview in the new role:
On getting the interim role…
“I got the phone call saying that Simon had left, and they wanted me to take charge in the interim and that is what I’m going to do. The plan is to take it day-by-day, and I will do so until the chairman tells me otherwise.
“My role before taking charge was with the Under-23s and I’m really passionate about that. I will continue to work as interim manager until the chairman says, and I will drop back down and take that role up once again.
“I know a lot of the lads who have come up through the 23s, there’s about four or five of them right in the mix of it at the moment and I know their strengths and weaknesses after working with them for the last year or two, so it does help moving forwards.”
On his first training session…
“It’s been really productive and positive this morning, we’ve just been trying to get some detail into the lads as we are all looking forward to the game against Wimbledon at the weekend. The aim for us is to go there and try and get the three points.
“We were trying to be nice and bright in training, get a smile on everyone’s faces, get the players enjoying the work they were doing, and mainly, getting them to work hard and, hopefully, they use that for the period that I am in interim charge.”
On Saturday’s league clash…
“Moving forwards, whilst I am in charge, I want to go into every game looking for the three points. I’m confident with the squad we’ve got, we have some good players in the team and, if we get them playing the right way, we can get results moving forward.
“We must work together as a team and that should lead to the light at the end of the tunnel, starting Saturday hopefully. Mistakes have led to goals in the past, but we want to be confident in defending our own goal. On the flip side, we also want to be a threat further up the pitch so that will be the aim moving forwards.
“We’ve been on a bad run, but I want to change that on Saturday. Hopefully, with the coaching the staff can get into the players both today and tomorrow, we can come back home with a win against Wimbledon.