CITY BOSS HAS SAY AHEAD OF CUP CLASH
MICHAEL O’neill has plenty of selection decisions to make as he tries to book Stoke City a place in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals. It’s Aston Villa up next in the fourth round, with kick-off at 7pm tonight at Villa Park. Here is the Stoke manager’s pre-match press conference.
A TASTY MIDLANDS DERBY IN PROSPECT – HOW ARE YOU FEELING ABOUT IT?
I’m looking forward to it. It’s a great game for us against a team which has started the season very well. It was a very good performance on Monday night (Aston Villa won 3-0 at Fulham).
When you go up against Premier League opposition as a Championship team I think you have everything to gain. We’ve enjoyed the games in the cup to date and hopefully we can enjoy this one too and get the right result.
HOW MUCH CAN YOU ENJOY THESE GAMES AWAY FROM THE CHAMPIONSHIP?
They’ve been a good challenge.
We’ve played two League One teams where we are expected to win and we went away to Wolves where it was a totally different challenge. We came through that game.
It gives the players a bit of a benchmark as well. It’s a challenge to them individually and it’s a challenge to us as a team.
We’ve enjoyed it and having won three games in the competition we want to try to win another one and stay in the competition as long as we can.
THIS IS THE SORT OF GAME WHERE YOU REALLY MISS THE FANS?
It is, yes. Obviously cup games in particular and the 90 minutes and going
straight to a shoot-out, the format of the competition, is very good.
But we are not going to be playing in front of fans any time soon so we just have to adapt to the situation.
WHAT SORT OF GAME ARE YOU EXPECTING?
Tough. We know Villa may make changes to their team but they have a big squad. We’ve looked at the team they’ve played in previous cup games, but equally I think Dean (Smith) is probably the same as me: earlier in the season, with a short preseason, the cup games have given you the opportunity to get minutes into players, which is important. They’ve probably done the same as us in terms
of selection. We expect a tough game, but as I’ve said previously, it’s one we’re looking forward to.
INTERNATIONAL BREAK COMING UP NEXT WEEK: IS THIS AN OPPORTUNITY TO FIELD YOUR STRONGEST XI?
I think it’s debatable to say which is the stronger team in terms of the changes we’ve made.
What the cup games have given players initially is the opportunity and players who have taken those opportunities have found themselves playing on the Saturday as well.
Look at the likes of Harry Souttar who played on Saturday against Preston, Tashan (Oakley-boothe) played on Saturday...
I think the break comes at the right time.
We have two very good games against Villa and Birmingham and a chance to go into the international break in a real positive position.
We’ll utilise the squad. When I make changes to the team at this minute in time I don’t necessarily think I’m weakening it.
I genuinely believe the young players have shown that they’ve come in and been able to deal with the situation and deal with the games in the cup.
Equally, the team we’ve picked in the league has been strong as well.
We’ll pick a team we think is capable of winning the game on the night.
ASTON VILLA WILL BE STRONG FAVOURITES BUT STOKE’S RESULT AGAINST WOLVES MUST’VE GIVEN PLAYERS CONFIDENCE?
To go in and compete at this level is the challenge for us at this minute in time. We have a number of players in our squad who have played in the Premier League and if you’ve played in the Premier League you will always feel and believe that you should still be playing there.
This game gives our players an opportunity to show that. For the younger ones who come in it’s a benchmark for them.
We particularly enjoyed the game against Wolves. We had to be very tactical, we had to be very disciplined and I think we’ll have to be the same again tomorrow night.
WHAT’S THE LATEST INJURY NEWS?
We’re pretty good. We’ve no injuries from the weekend, we may just have to nurse one or two.
Other than that we are as strong as we can be other than the long term injuries: Joe Allen and Ryan Shawcross still working their way back.
A LOT OF TURNOVER OF PLAYERS OVER THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS – MORE SETTLED NOW?
We’re far from a settled
squad at this minute in time. People continually ask me about players leaving but as a manager I can only have so much control of that.
The players at the periphery of the squad at the moment, it’s between them and their agents and clubs being willing to take those players and want those players.
The squad is taking shape but ultimately and obviously we are restricted by some of the players in the building
and their contracts to get to where we would like it to be. It’s work in progress and we’re trying to, I suppose, over a period of four or five transfer windows get a younger squad, get a squad that doesn’t cost the club as much money and a squad that is hungry to try to get promotion.
It’s going to take more than two transfer windows, unfortunately, to try to do that.