Assistant head coach Steven Whittaker spoke to the club after his side’s 1-0 win over Grimsby Town in their final pre-season fixture ahead of the new season.
In a game that saw Jay Lynch pick up his third clean sheet in just eight days, a first-half goal from Promise Omochere was enough to secure the win for the Cods in this seafood derby.
The goal came from a swift attacking move down the right, which started with Carl Johnston who played a through ball to Josh Vela. He then played a low cross into the box where Omochere was able to tap home from close range.
After the game, the Whitts had this to say:
On the game as a whole…
“Overall, I think we weren’t as secure as we were in the other two friendlies we’ve had against Preston and Blackburn. We were a little bit sluggish at times, but the positive we can take from it is that we kept the clean sheet, and scored the only goal, to win us the game.
“Strikers always want to score and Promise [Omochere] has managed to get on the score sheet, which is great. We don’t just want the one goal in games though so we will be looking to add to those numbers going in the season.
“There were aspects of the match that we definitely have to do better in games going into the new season. We plan to continue to work on the attacking side of the game, a lot of our build-up play has been good throughout the pre-season, but we need to focus on putting the ball in the net.”
On keeping another clean sheet and adding defensive options back in…
“We mentioned that we’d like to keep more clean sheets, and this is a positive the players can take into the opening games of the season now. We were very good at that last year as we limited teams to only a few opportunities so we will be wanting to do that again this season.
“We’ve worked on a few shapes and credit to the players as they’ve shown determination and a willingness to put their bodies on the line before getting back into shape, which has been great – that has been the case this week as well.
“We want to be adaptable in certain games, depending on who we are playing. Shaun [Rooney]’s back in the side now, he’s building his way back up after injury so it’s great to see him get some minutes – he’s just working on getting himself ready.”