Gannon’s praise for returning duo
JIM Gannon says Paul Turnbull and wingback Sam Minihan are crucial to Stockport County’s future.
Both players have been out recently but returned for the 4-0 thrashing of Leamington on Saturday.
The pair are signed on deals until the summer of 2019 at Edgeley Park, and Gannon said their are key to County’s 2018/19 campaign.
“The issue with Sam and Paul has been when to reintroduce them against Leamington and how long for,” said the Stockport boss.
“We always had the plan to bring on Paul once we had a foothold on the game and once we’d trusted Harry to deal with the physical threat of their midfield early on.
“We wanted to get Sam half an hour which we did, he got some really good crosses in and you could see that he’s really been working on the training ground stuff and applying it to the game and ended up with an assist.”
Gannon also praised striker Jason Oswell, who struck the crossbar and the post in search of a first league goal in 2018.
The former Newtown striker helped himself to 23 goals before Christmas for The Hatters, but has struggled to rediscover his scoring touch since the New Year.
But Gannon admitted that his main striker had been ‘superb’ in recent weeks. He said: “He’s been working incredibly hard for weeks now and was unfortunate not to score after hitting the crossbar and the post!
“Perhaps if we had another number nine in January when he was really tired, that would have benefited him and the team but he’s really back towards his best now.”