Watch the Gaffer's pre Stevenage interview here…
The Gaffer reflecting on our Papa John's Trophy exit…
Obviously we were disappointed to be knocked out of the quarter finals. It was a good opportunity that we missed out on but it's hard to fault the players. They tried ever so hard, denied Sutton who had very few opportunities for even strikes on goal.
So they created next to nothing against us but just a set piece later on and quite often the case with Sutton this season, they've ground teams down and eventually won in the late stages. Unfortunately it happened to us but like I say, we were a tight knit bunch throughout the game, there was a great collective effort and on another occasion, we could have put one of our chances and won the game.
On seeing a defensive improvement…
I like to think we've put that (Newport defeat) behind us now. It was a rarity for us to have that feeling. You're going to lose games at any level but the manner in which we lost it, we were open defensively on that on that occasion and we felt wounded from it. We've had two very solid displays since.
Last Saturday was obviously pretty much a complete performance, both defensively and in creating and taking chances. The other night was almost a perfect away performance, but it wasn't to be and we're still able to take many positives from it.
On the change of formation…
We looked at games previous and Newport. We played 4-3-3 and had two very attack minded midfielders and full backs bombing on, and that left ourselves exposed defensively and it was our work off the ball that caught us on the hot and left us open.
The change to five in the last couple of games has made us look more solid but also you have to look at the key personnel like Jack Diamond who hasn't been available to us. Now he's back, it gives us an opportunity again of having more width. It's a great boost for us and provides a real spark going forward. We know if we are solid defensively, we know we've got goals in us with Jack.
On transfer activity…
It's one in, one out with that respect but for the first time in quite some time, I'll have that unfortunate conversation with two or three players that are not in the squad for Saturday but we're trying to get the right balance here. We've had enough games this year where we've travelled with 12 or 13 players and we haven't been able to have a variety of tactics and formations and we've been a one trick pony but now we're able to adapt.
Won't expect much more (business), but you never know. We've got one or two things we're still working on, but we have to get the go ahead from those clubs.
On Stevenage…
Paul Tisdale's gone in there and made them more solid. They've played one or two different formations but they're big and strong and they've looked a lot more solid over the last few weeks, and it's credit to the manager going in there. We expect a really hard game as they've won the last two home games and they'll be hard to beat, which is what we've got to try and instil with us and just still remain really, really strong.
But, we have to make sure that our work off the ball is as good as on the ball. It doesn't mean to say we don't create because we have done in the last two games but with the addition of Jack as well, it makes us more threatening.
On a busy February coming up…
There's a lot of points to play for and we're looking forward to every single game. It's an opportunity to build on the last two games and we feel now is the right time to go into games with a strong squad both numerically and with our obvious different options available to us now and we can attack every single game.
#ProudToBeTown