Head coach Scott Brown spoke to the local media ahead of his sides trip to face Sheffield Wednesday in a historic Emirates FA Cup Fourth Round clash for the club.
The Cods will make their way to Hillsborough for the second time in the space of a week on Saturday as they look to make even more history in this season’s FA Cup run. The side has already surpassed the previous best in the competition and will look to go one step further if they can manage to get past the Owls at the weekend.
Here’s what the gaffer had to say ahead of the game:
On our opponents in the cup this Saturday…
“We went to Sheff Wed last week and I thought we were exceptional, and I told the lads that. We played brilliantly against a top team that is on a fantastic run of form as well so I will praise the lads when they do well, but they also need to take the negative side of things as well when they don’t perform.
“I’m sure they will go strong as their game on Tuesday was called off so I’m sure he’ll want his best players getting 60-90 minutes under their belts, and Darren [Moore]’s concentration will be on the league because of the situation they’re in. It’ll be a great occasion for the lads to go out and play and it will be even better for them as you are going back to a great stadium.
“We need to put on a performance that our fans and their fans will remember. We’ve had some great results in the competition so far and, like everyone, we want to make it to the next round. The squad hasn’t been chosen yet, there’s one day left of training, and everyone will have to be out there and the team will be selected from that.
“Everyone’s number is up at the weekend so it’s all about the performance levels in training, can they go three games in one week, but can they also dig us out of a hole as well because we’ve been beaten three times on the run and I don’t like that, I’m not a person who likes to get beat, the lads don’t want to get beat, we shared our feelings in a meeting, and will move on from that.”
On the search for a striker this January…
“Everyone wants a striker and we are getting closer to one; we know we have to bring one in as we’ve not scored goals, and our forwards don’t really score goals from open play, so we need to make sure we’ve got better quality coming into the building than what we’ve let go and I think we will do that.
“Having a striker makes or breaks a team; you can be a fantastic football team, but if you’ve not got that ruthless goal scorer who wants to be in between the posts, that has that selfishness as well in them so they believe they will always score goals, it makes everything a whole lot harder for the group.
“We’re working behind-the-scenes extremely hard, which every club is at this time of the year, and we’ve got a chairman who wants to back us and have a great recruitment staff in the group as well. For us, I’m sure we’ll have a couple of bodies in before the deadline day runs out at the end of the month.”
On the disappointing result on Tuesday night…
“We expect more from the lads, and we’ve spent the time since looking back and reflecting on what we’ve watched, we’ve seen where we all went wrong. Whether that be the team selection from before or the lads not turning up on the day, we also had to take note that sometimes you have a bad game, but even when that happens, you still have to do your part for the team.
“The lads have worked hard for me, when we go away from home, we’re always competing and are up for it, but in the last two weeks, we’ve lost two records that we’ve had. Before Saturday, we’d scored in every single away game, and we’d always come back in every game we’d been two goals down – that’s gone as well after Saturday.
“Being a manager, you’ve got to sit back and reflect on everything and not dive into the dressing room diving, but that was probably the angriest I’ve been because of all the work we’ve put in over the last six months.
“What happened out there wasn’t what we worked on, we’ve been excellent over the last five to six weeks, but we’ve not picked up any points. We’ve been poor, especially in the final third which isn’t like us, but that’s in the past now so we need to work on that and put all our focus on Saturday as it’s a huge game for this club. We’ll change the game plan for Sheff Wed."