Head coach Scott Brown sat down to the local media for the last pre-match press conference of the season on Friday afternoon ahead of his side’s clash against Ipswich Town at the weekend.
The Cods go into the season finale on the back of a decent home record from the last couple of months, only being on the wrong side of a result once in the last nine games at Highbury, and Town will want to keep that form up when Ipswich come to town as they look to play a part in how the table will look at the top end of the table on Sunday evening.
Here’s what the gaffer had to say after the game:
On the turnaround in home form over the last couple of months…
“I was disappointed with the way we played [at home] as we conceded a lot of late goals, but we were in most of the games. That was the hardest thing with all the managers coming in and saying that ‘we played some good football’ and that was irritating as we didn’t have that firepower or the quality in the final third – we had to rely on someone to steal us a goal.
“Since then, we’ve managed to kick on at home and the form at Highbury has improved dramatically. Even though it’s the last game of the season at the weekend, we’ve not thrown the towel in just to let Ipswich come and win, we know they’re an in-form side which will be full of confidence, but it’s all about how we work as a team together on Sunday.
“We need to go into this like we need the three points or need a point, and you also want to keep this form going at home until the end of the season and stay hard to beat, if we can get that foundation start of being a hard team to beat when teams come to Highbury, that would be a great start.”
On how the goals that were set have been reached…
“I enjoyed playing football but, this is the next best thing for myself and Whitts [Steven Whittaker] to come to Fleetwood and we obviously jumped into it with two feet. We wanted to be here, and we wanted to keep them in the league so the goal for the first season was to get to mid-table and we’re in that area which is fantastic.
“That’s due to the lads’ work rate and understanding, all the way to the end of the season as they haven’t given up. We’re in a good place at this moment in time, we’ve given the lads two or three different formations that we expect them to play in, which they have the ability to go and express themselves in the final third in because they can do things that you can’t teach.”
On the season as a whole and the upcoming summer…
“It’s been a good season; it was a slow start which was always going to be the case with the amount of defensive work we did over the summer. We didn’t score that many goals at the start of the season, but we managed to get a couple of strikers as well as Phoenix [Patterson] in and there’s a lot more creativity going forwards now and we look like we can catch teams to the counter.
“We’ve also got a little bit of height and quality that we brought to the club in January as well. You take what we’ve learned as a group, so we have to now reflect on how the season has gone, understand what we can do well, and know what we can improve on in terms of the processes for next season.
“Most of the lads we signed at the start of the season are still here and will know what pre-season will be like – some of the lads that came in throughout January won’t know what that’ll be like. Once this Sunday’s game is finished, that will be us looking for players, start to build what our squad will be for next season and then start to look at getting some players in throughout July.”
