Chicksen sorry as he relishes chance
DEFENDER Adam Chicksen has issued an apology to Notts County fans for raising doubts over his commitment to the club earlier this season.
The 29-year-old was struggling for game time and came close to leaving, only for a deal to join another National League side to fall through.
Chicksen remained at Meadow Lane and has benefitted from a fresh start under new manager Ian Burchnall.
But he admits he has had to win back the trust of both his team-mates and the supporters.
“I probably owe the fans an apology, because it’s easy to take the easy option of going out on loan at the start of the season,” he said.
“I do apologise to them for that.
“When you see a player, you want to see them fully committed. You don’t want to see them try to run away and take the easy option.
“That accountability falls on myself.
“The only way I could earn the trust back is through performances and earn back the trust of the players by training hard and being there for them.
“I did some self-reflecting and earned their (the players’) trust back. I’m trying to earn the fans’ trust back by putting in performances. That’s the only way I’m going to do it.
“I’ve got my head down and worked hard.
“The new manager meant opportunities for me, which was nice. But it didn’t go away from me wanting to be the person I wanted to be, first of all.
“I knew the performances were going to come when I did get the opportunity.
“A new manager allows new opportunities, which is great. But I knew those performances were coming, because of what I put in place for myself and how I learnt from the experiences early on in the season.”
The Magpies have also collectively hit a purple patch, going into today’s clash at home to Bromley on the back of three straight wins.
“It is really positive,” said Chicksen. “When we were losing games, we were watching them back and thought we were still doing really well. We couldn’t get the goals, but if you look at our performances, they were still there.
“I always thought it was going to turn, it was just a matter of time.
“As much as we are scoring a lot of goals at the minute, if you actually watch us out of possession and how much the lads are running for each other, to a man, you can see we’re really working hard.
“That allows all the other stuff to happen.
“You’ve got to give credit to the manager for working on tactics and to the lads themselves for taking responsibility to implement that on the pitch.
“We’re starting to learn. If you’re not learning, you’re dying. The lads are learning and improving game by game. You can see that in the way they press and the way they attack.
“It’s starting to flow more fluently, because we are all learning and starting to progress as a team.
“We look like a team, that’s the difference. It shows in the performances how tight we are as a group.”