‘Motivation won’t be a problem for the remaining nine matches’
STOKE CITY ARE BACK AT THE BET365 TODAY TO TAKE ON DERBY COUNTY. MICHAEL O’NEILL HAS BEEN SPEAKING TO PETE SMITH ABOUT THAT MATCH AND WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN WHEN THE SEASON FINISHES AND THE TRANSFER WINDOW OPENS.
DERBY MANAGED TO GET A MID-WEEK DRAW AGAINST BRENTFORD – HOW DO YOU SEE THIS GAME GOING?
Derby showed great spirit. To be 2-0 down and come back against Brentford, it shows that the spirit in their group is good.
They are still trying to get away from the bottom of the table and we know what that’s like having experienced it last season.
I think they’re a good side. They’ve got a lot of good players. They are playing under probably more pressure than they have done in recent seasons because of their league position and they have younger players in their squad as well.
I expect a tough game. They move the ball well and we look forward to the game. I think it will be a different scenario than what we faced on Tuesday night; a barrage of long free-kicks and long throw ins.
We didn’t take our chances and had we done we would have won the game. I felt that was the disappointing thing for us. We dealt with what Cardiff threw at us but didn’t take our chances to win the game.
THE PERFORMANCE WAS ENCOURAGING AGAINST CARDIFF BUT YOU’LL ALWAYS BE JUDGED ON RESULTS – IS THAT SOMETHING YOU’RE USED TO?
Particularly in this division when you play so often, you get periods of inconsistency and we’re in one of those at this time. Equally you can’t just focus on the result.
We’re in a situation when we’re trying to grow and develop as a team. There has been a lot of change at the club and that takes time.
Games like Tuesday leave us a little disappointed because we feel we should have taken more than we got and that’s something we have to work on and address.
But I look at us going to a team like
Cardiff and we had as many as five or six potential starting players not available to us. I think that shows where we’ve addressed as a squad and some of the younger players stood up to a big physical test.
ANY GOOD INJURY NEWS?
In a word, no.
None of the players are back and Fletch is added to that. So it’s Fletcher, Campbell, Collins, Cousins, Fox, Mcclean, Oakleyboothe. We’re a little bit stretched in terms of bodies at the minute.
We’ve had some younger players on the bench and we’ll have young players on the bench again tomorrow.
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM WITH OAKLEYBOOTHE?
He’s got a bit of a hamstring problem which has flared up and if we push him too hard it could aggravate that and put him out for longer than is necessary.
NICE TO SEE CHRISTIAN NORTON MAKE HIS DEBUT BUT WHAT A SHAME IT WAS IN AN EMPTY STADIUM?
Unfortunately we’re going through times when the edge is taken off all these things, whether it’s scoring a first goal or Joe Bursik making his debut, Ryan (Shawcross) leaving the club and we weren’t able to give him the send off he deserved… all of those things have made this season more challenging.
It was good to get Christian on the pitch. He’s a young player and he’s only been at the club for a number of months after being released by Southampton.
He’s probably been fast-tracked a little bit because of the injury situation but I thought he showed up well in the brief time he was on the pitch.
WILL YOU CHANGE THE SYSTEM AGAINST DERBY WITHOUT FLETCHER?
We have to look to see if we feel it’s right to change the system and what are options are. We’ve got Norton, Vokes and Brown and Powell has been used higher up for us in recent games as well.
Jacob has had a bit of a difficult time but ultimately his best performances for us have been as a striker as opposed to a wide right players.
We have to look what the options are. We did a bit of work on it today in training and we’ll sleep on it and make a decision overnight.
WILL YOU GIVE PLAYERS A BREAK DURING THE INTERNATIONAL PERIOD?
We hope that by the end of the international break that the likes of Clucas, Mcclean and Fletcher are fit, Morgan Fox should be back for that period as well.
I think the players need a break. We’re very fortunate that we can come and train and play football while everyone else is working from home but there is a monotony to it as well with empty stadiums. They do need a break away from it.
We will do some training next week with some of the group. We do have a friendly pencilled in for some of the younger players to be involved in.
We also have a number of players away on international duty and some of the younger ones away on under-21s duty with England and Wales.
Our bodies will be light but we’ll make sure we are ready for the first game after the break.
ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT COVID AS PLAYERS GO AWAY WITH THEIR COUNTRIES?
You’ve always got to be concerned by that. We had the situation previously with James Mcclean coming back and had a positive test from a previous international and missed three or four games for us.
I don’t think they’re at a much higher risk. I think all the international associations have put in a lot of work to make sure that the bubble they operate in is as secure as possible.
These games have to be played. These are important games, World Cup qualifiers, and players want to go and represent their country. We have to accept that’s the way it’s going to be.
WITH THE NUMBER OF LOAN PLAYERS YOU HAVE OUT AND THE IMPACT OF COVID, HOW DIFFICULT WILL IT BE TO GET PLAYERS OUT THIS SUMMER – AND GET PLAYERS IN THAT YOU WANT?
I think it will be every bit as difficult as it has been in the previous three windows.
We’ve got in that situation when players who we brought to the club either in the Premier League or Championship haven’t really worked out for us in the majority and there are lot now playing on loan elsewhere but they have contracts with the club, which means they will return to the club in the summer.
For a number of those players they have been away for two years, some longer than that. It’s not like they can come back and kickstart their career because the club moves on, the team moves on.
All of those things will be factors in trying to progress the team and it probably limits us in the types of player we’ll be able to bring to the club and the money compared to what we have spent in previous years.
That’s pretty much been the way the transfer windows have been since I’ve come in so I think we’re well equipped for that.
As a squad and team we have improved this season quite a bit. We’re a little bit disappointed with some aspects of that and we have to look to continue to improve and get some more key players in if we can.
It will be a constant challenge and it will be until we can get through the period of players’ contracts running down, coming to an end. In that point we’ll be in a better position to reset the bar.
In the meantime we have to try to keep building a team which can be as competitive as possible.
DO YOU NEED SIX WINS OUT OF NINE TO SNEAK INTO THE PLAY-OFFS?
I think we’d need more than that to be honest. To be in the play-offs you probably need 70 points plus.
We said all along that our aim was to make sure we’re in the top half of the table – and we’ve been in the top half for the majority of the season – and try to get as close to the play-offs as possible.
What we want to do is try to win as many of the remaining games as possible and see where that takes us.
We had realistic ambitions at the start of the season and it’s important we try to finish strongly and take that into next season.
The Championship has been difficult for this club. We finished 15th and 16th in the previous two years so we’ve got a bit of work and progress to make before we are equipped enough for the top six.
WOULD YOU CALL THIS A TRANSITION SEASON?
I don’t think it’s adapting because we’ve been in the Championship for three years. If you know the background of the club you’ll know that we invested heavily in the first year and significantly after that.
Unfortunately it didn’t get us to where we want to be and now we’re addressing that. We’re addressing the situation we’re in.
I think every team outside the top six will claim they’re in a transition period in the Championship. That’s the nature of the league. I think clubs are always adapting to either getting relegated or trying to get promoted. There’s always a reset because clubs come down and after the third year you no longer have parachute payments from the Premier League.
You have to cut your cloth accordingly and we’re no different from anyone else.
You can call it a transition year but I look at it more as a continued improvement and looking to develop the club. We’re looking to be a club that can, first of all, challenge to get promoted and more importantly, that the strength of the club is there so that should we achieve that goal, the club has the right structure to make sure we can stay in the level above.
IS IT DIFFICULT TO MOTIVATE PLAYERS STUCK IN MID-TABLE? ARE THEY PLAYING FOR THEIR FUTURES?
You hit the nail on the head. They are all playing for their future and they do that every time they go on the pitch to represent the club. I think we have good professionals in our club that want to make sure they do as well as possible. I think we saw that on Tuesday night.
I think sometimes people read into a negative result like we had at Middlesbrough and put that down to motivation. I think if you watch the game closely we dominated for 25 minutes and then lost a goal and struggled to get back into the game despite having a lot of possession.
Motivation won’t be a problem for the remaining nine games. Players have high personal standards.
We’ve got people in our building like John Obi Mikel, Joe Allen, James Chester, Steven Fletcher – just four players who are really good senior professionals that take real pride in making sure as a team we are highly motivated.
STOKE HAVEN’T HAD THE LUXURY OF CONTINUITY?
We basically had a near-fully fit squad when the transfer window closed and made a decision with letting Lee Gregory, Tom Ince and Liam Lindsay go out on loan having played very few minutes for us in the first half of the season. We felt that was the right decision for the club and the players.
But now we’re in a situation when we have seven injuries. That happens. It’s unfortunate. What it does is provide opportunities for young players – and possibly sooner than they would have got.
I still believe we’ve handled the injury situation over the course of the season. We’ve had a lot to deal with as a club that way but ultimately we’ve remained competitive and that’s testament to the players and their attitude towards things.
SHOULD WE FEEL SORRY FOR JOE BURSIK, BELOW, OUT IN THE COLD?
Joe was out on loan and the plan was for him to stay on loan in League One. That plan changed because of both senior goalkeepers getting injured. Joe came back and did very well. By the time we had three goalkeepers again the January window had closed so he didn’t have the option of going out on loan again, other than as an emergency loan. There have been clubs who have inquired for that but we don’t think they have been suitable.
I’ve said to the goalkeepers that I don’t think they should read too much about who’s on the bench. It’s more about as a three.
I felt Adam (Davies) deserved a chance to start because he was very unlucky to lose his place through injury. Angus (Gunn) took the opportunity, then Joe took the opportunity.
Joe is a young goalkeeper with a lot to look forward to and a lot ahead of him. He is part of the England under-21s squad, which is a big boost for him, and he has to push to make sure he gets the opportunity to be number one here between now and the end of the season and going forward into the start of next season as well.