Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
N talks to Crusaders midfielder MATTHEW SNODDY t Skimmer the brink ed restore he engine the Crues
and I think I did well and thankfully Stephen kept faith in me and kept me in there and I think I have repaid him with some good performances and long may it continue.
“Every position in our team, there are two or three players competing for it, and even the likes of Colin Coates and Jordan Owens, they are probably not even guaranteed their place because there are boys there who are more than capable of stepping in and taking their place.
“I think everyone is aware of that. When you play for Crusaders, you are not going to come and be guaranteed to play because we have such a good squad, it’s only natural there are going to be changes made and certain types of games are going to need certain types of players.
“Like the other night, I thought I had done well against Linfield and turned up at Ballinamallard thinking I was going to play, but Stephen called me out and told me it was a change of tactics and he wanted to do something different, which I completely respected.
“I understand there are games when certain players are needed and you just have to be ready when called upon.” Frustrating it may be but for Snoddy – who hails from Rathfern just a few miles down the road from Seaview, and who has spent most of his young career at the Crues having joined at 15 before making his debut on his 17th birthday – there’s simply nowhere else he’d rather be.
“My ambition is just to make myself a regular first teamer and play as many games as I can and win as many trophies as I can here,” he said.
“It’s exciting times at Crusaders, there’s no doubt about it. Every competition we play in, we want to win, and we have the squad there to do that, but we just have to keep focused on one game at a time and see where it takes us.”