Prioritise our cup finals: Hill
KEITH Hill admits it is difficult keeping his players focused on the fight for League One survival while the prospect of a trip to Wembley in the FA Cup looms large.
Dale returned to the Crown Oil Arena on Wednesday, three days after their heroic 2-2 draw against Tottenham Hotspur in the cup, and drew 0-0 with MK Dons.
The atmosphere inside the stadium was a far cry from the packed house for the FA Cup tie and it proved a tough night for the home side.
“It’s difficult to keep the players’ minds focused on the next game rather than the replay because there’s a lot of questions being asked from the administration staff – what are we doing for Wembley? We do that anyway, if we were playing Fleetwood on Tuesday as we were supposed to, we’d be sorting the travel, the hotel, we’d be game planning for Fleetwood even though we have Wigan at the weekend because we are always trying to be in front of ourselves.
“So from that perspective it’s not changed. But Wembley? The big W? Tottenham? It does make an impact.
“But I keep trying to stress to the players, these are our cup finals – MK Dons and Wigan on Saturday. We have 17 more games in the league and I have said to a lot of people it looks unlikely we can haul back the points difference.
“I’d rather be on level games with five points difference going into the last ten games of the season. But mathematically we can still do it.”
Hill insists if Dale are to climb out of the bottom four then the supporters have a role to play by not creating an atmosphere of anxiety at home matches.
“Atmosphere? I don’t think Russ Abbott could have generated one on Wednesday night and that’s the difficulty of it. Players do want to play in the type of atmosphere generated on Sunday when there was little expectation.
“On Wednesday night there was criticism when I was coming off the pitch at the end, suggesting we were not very good, and I take exception at that because the players tried everything to win the game and make sure they take at least a point. So I would suggest if you are going to bring anxiety to the team, don’t turn up.
“We have got to play a lot of teams and we have got to make sure we don’t bring stress, because it will de-energise the players. I want to keep the players calm, I want them to be happy and forgiven.
“I don’t want anxiety – if we bring anxiety we haven’t got a cat in hell’s chance.
“At this moment we have a great chance and we have to make sure we turn the screw in the first half when Andy Cannon should score and he hits the bar.
“If he scores that and we defend like we have done then I think we win that game. But that’s just the narrow margins we have fallen foul of this season.”
‘I keep trying to stress to the players these are our cup finals’