Richie is looking to win it in style
BOSS Richie Wellens has paid tribute to his Salford City players as they look to re-join the League Two play-off fray this afternoon when they welcome high-flying Cheltenham Town.
Despite off-field distractions with a change in management in particular, the Ammies are one of only four EFL clubs with an unbeaten home league record this season and sit eighth in the table – and Wellens acknowledged that his side are in a healthy position.
He said: “It’s testament to the players. We’ve had to scrape through a few results but that’s a good sign because once we do hit the ground running, we’ll win games comfortably by playing some really good football.
“But then we can always resort to putting a graft in and digging out a result, too.
“Since I’ve come in, we’ve tried to implement a different playing system and style but, more than anything, my winning nature has to come to the fore, we have to win football matches.
“Only then will people start to believe in your style, players more than anyone.
“If you’re winning games, they’ll start to believe in themselves and the team going forward.”
The second-placed Robins travel to Moor Lane in the midst of a five-match unbeaten run in the fourth tier, with their last league defeat also coming in Greater Manchester at the hands of
Oldham Athletic last month.
And Wellens, who faced Michael Duff’s outfit on four occasions last season with Swindon Town, admitted his side would benefit from an extended break as their injury problems continue to worsen. He said: “I would like a couple of free weeks because I think if you have Saturday to Saturday free, from Monday to Wednesday you can do a lot of work and that does help. It’s no coincidence that our best performance so far has been against Bradford and we had a really good free week leading up to that.
“The main thing at the moment would be consistency in team selection, every time we get players back, we pick up an injury, every time we get a good result, somebody else picks something up and we’re constantly having to change.”
Salford could be without Ash Hunter after he sustained a shoulder injury in training, while Richie Towell, who returned to action last weekend after a nine-match spell on the side-lines, has had a reoccurrence of the same problem and will be out indefinitely.