Hill’s untouched targets for Dale
KEITH Hill is braced for a tough time in the January transfer market as he looks to add some momentum to his Rochdale squad.
Dale started 2018 in League One’s relegation zone, unfamiliar territory for the club under its most successful manager.
Supporters have grown used to over-achieving under Hill and the manager
‘It will be difficult but we will try because we need some momentum’
is doing all he can to lift his side away from the bottom four.
Hill is keen to bring in players who have not been part of what he described as ‘the failures of this season.’
But he insists it will not be easy given the budget he has in comparison to other clubs in the division.
“You need money and unfortunately we don’t have a lot of money left within the budget,” he said. “We will try to shapeshft, bring players in and out. But to be honest, if anyone wants any of our players they will probably want our better players and we need to be keeping those.
“So it’s going to be difficult but we will try our best, because we do need some momentum from somewhere, some energy, some untouched players who have not been part of the failures of this season to give us some impetus for the second half of the campaign.”
Before the New Year’s Day defeat against Blackpool, Dale closed out 2017 with a 2-0 loss at Doncaster on Friday evening and a performance which disappointed Hill arguably more than the result.
“We do a lot of work, due diligence on every opponent, game planning, video analysis, team meetings – to try and get the right performances. You wouldn’t have thought we’d done any of that when you looked at the first fifteen or twenty minutes against Doncaster,” he said. “I was looking at it and thinking ‘I have to make changes’ almost immediately after kick off and I shouldn’t have to do that. The players’ petrol tank should be full, full of energy and enthusiasm and it was as though we were a sitting duck. I’ve never been a sitting duck, always a moving target, and I don’t expect my players to sit in there like sitting ducks.
“You have got to try to fight your emotions, go through the game and watch it again. It is difficult to keep exposing players to mistakes and trying to rectify those, sometimes you have to lead just by feeling the way the players are. You can’t just keep saying ‘you shouldn’t do this, you should do that.’
“Sometimes you have to let the players bottom out and bounce – I’m not too sure if we have bottomed out yet.”