Head coach Scott Brown spoke to the media on Thursday afternoon as he looked ahead to this Saturday’s Sky Bet League One trip down south to face Exeter City at St James Park.
The Cods have had a good run of away from recently as they have managed to pick up four points from the last two games, beating Burton Albion before heading to Fratton Park and picking up a valuable point against Portsmouth soon after.
Here’s what the gaffer had to say in his pre-match interview:
On Exeter and the buzz in the camp…
“It’s going to be hard as they’ve made a lot of changes against Forest Green in the week, they’ve got Kevin in temporary charge as well so we aren’t 100% sure how they’re going to play, but we will see how it is. It’s a tight league, you can win two and be up there or lose two and be right down there; it’s about us worrying about our own form, not anyone else’s, and taking each game at a time.
“You always want to win every game that you go into, and I believe that we can do so. We’ve had some good results away from home recently so, for us, we are in a good place in terms of travelling away. We have to make sure we look at our home form, we didn’t score in the two games leading up to the Man United one, but we scored two against them so that was good for us.
“To get that buzz around the place because the lads are scoring goals, it gives you a little bit of momentum as you go into the next game. Everything is still a work in progress; you can’t install a winning mentality in people overnight and it’s not just about installing it, it’s about everyone trusting each other and having that belief in themselves.”
On the defensive record and being more ruthless up top…
“We conceded a lot of goals last season so we prepped pre-season so we that we were going to be harder to beat in games, and that we would be more structurally secure behind the ball before we went forward. On the other end, we’ve not scored as many goals as we would have liked to so far, but we’ve got a few points on the board but could have had more.
“We know the lads believe in that as well; we know we have a good group and it’s just about knowing how to get the best out of them. We want to keep this defensive record going as long as we can and we need to make sure we are attacking at the same time, going forwards, and scoring goals.
“The injuries haven’t helped us going forwards so that’s always a dampener to be perfectly honest. For us, the main thing is that we aren’t conceding a lot of goals and are hard to beat. If we can score a goal or two, that’s great, but we want to make sure we can dictate the play and keep the ball – we need to create more chances and that is on us.”
On the last league outing against Shrewsbury…
“I wasn’t too happy about the first-half performance against Shrewsbury; the lads were more like themselves in the second half, but we can’t keep giving teams 45 minutes to let them build and create chances. If we do that, we are always playing catch-up, so we need to make sure we hit the ground running as soon as the referee blows his whistle.
“We know there’s going to be a battle before we can get the ball down and be composed. It’s about our work rate, our positioning sense, and our understanding of the game. You will never dominate the ball for 90 minutes, but it’s about us being determined to have that fight and willingness to break the lines.
“If we do break lines, we’ve got to make sure we thread the passes through as well, and we didn’t do that against Shrewsbury. We were a bit anxious on the ball and that’s why we couldn’t get out in that one. Fair play to Shrewsbury, they had a game plan, stuck to it, and came at us in the first half. We created more than enough chances to get back into it but have to be more ruthless.”