Head coach Scott Brown spoke to the media on Thursday afternoon and looked ahead to his side’s upcoming Sky Bet League One clash against Exeter City at Highbury.
The Cods are in good form, having won their last two games, and will look to bring that momentum into this weekend’s fixture against Gary Caldwell’s men at Highbury. Exeter will be bringing the same good fortune to the Fylde Coast on Saturday as well after netting eight times in the last two games against Accrington Stanley and promotion-chasing Barnsley.
Here’s what the gaffer had to say in his pre-match interview:
On the weekend’s opposition in Exeter…
“We don’t want to get too carried away, we’re going to carry on taking it one game at a time, and for us, we are looking towards Exeter at the weekend. They are on a great run of form and had a fantastic result against Barnsley in the week and it was a good performance from them as well.
“It’ll be fine coming up against Gary [Caldwell] as we’ve got great respect for each other; I know him well, so I know he’ll have his team working hard as they’ll be organised. I’ve seen a couple of changes in formation from them, so he’s got them ticking over, they’re playing some attractive football, but are also picking up points too.
“Today’s session was well prepared, and the lads did well considering we’ve been chopping and changing formations, we like to keep the lads on their toes, but also like them to have that understanding of two different formations that we can jump in and out of – we can’t drop our standards, we need to maintain the tempo we have been doing.”
On the new striking duo in Stockley and Marrriott…
“We got a couple of new signings in, which has helped even though it’s taken them a while to get adjusted to the way we play, as we don’t want to take anything away from their qualities as well. The two strikers we’ve brought in are fantastic finishers and are a goal threat in the box, Jayden [Stockley] loves crosses into the box and we’ve done that more now than we ever have done.
“It’s us learning about them as well; Jack [Marriott] wants to score goals in the box as he’s lively and holds the ball up well, but the two of them have been playing well together. Jayden also holds the ball well, brings others into the game, and is a calming influence. He wants the contact, a challenge, and wants to do the horrible part of the game which is working off the ball too.
“Both of them have brought quality to us, the Chairman wanted these two to come in and we managed that. We’ve had to adapt the formation a little bit, but we can also – as we showed at the weekend – go back to a 4-3-3 by bringing Phoenix [Patterson] on and putting him out wide as he has great delivery and puts it in areas for Jayden to score goals.”
A quick update on the injuries at Town…
“[Carlos Mendes Gomes] has a tight hamstring so it’s nothing for us to worry about too much so the next few days will tell us a lot about where he’s at. Whether he’s in the squad on Saturday may be a different question, but we will have to wait and see.
“We’ve had Promise [Omochere] and Scotty Robertson back in training, but probably won’t be available for this weekend and will look to be back, or challenging, for next weekend so it’s good to get those bodies back – Danny Andrew probably won’t be back until next season though.
“We are wishing him a speedy recovery; Danny’s played a lot of games and, at this moment in time, he’s currently on holiday on some time off because it’s been a hard schedule for himself so he’ll probably have to be in for some of the Summer holidays to play catch up due to the injury so it’s a good time for him to get away now.”