Following a 4-1 win over Barnoldswick Town Dave McNabb spoke to the club to give us his thoughts on the game.
Dave McNabb: “Overall, a really professional performance. I think we started the game unbelievably well. The first 10 minutes, I think the first seven or eight of it was spent camped outside their box and then sort of constantly probed and looked for those chances, balls into the box, little half chances, nothing of any note, and then the tempo dropped a little bit, and we let them back into it. To be fair, they played some good stuff, you know, for spells, probably a 10-15 minute spell on the start of the first half, thought Barnoldswick played some good stuff, they’ve got some good players, but second half, we knew that they’d probably tyre and I think second half we came out and started again with the same tempo and we got that all-important first goal and then it just sort of built from there. Massively disappointed with the last 30 seconds of the game and conceded and I think we’ve done that a few times in games this season, we’ve given away daft goals when we’ve been 3-0 up or whatever and, in those games, I think there’s been where we’ve conceded chances and then conceded a daft goal at the end.”
Further adding “Today they have another chance, they’ve made one save, so really disappointed because we didn’t deserve to concede the goal. But you know, it’s all relative, so obviously we’ve got a completely changed back four, new partnership in the middle of it, Aaron [Chalmers] hasn’t played for three to four weeks now with his injury, Louis [Jeanne] has been away as well and he’s not played for four or five weeks, so Nicky’s [Adams] had to go in at right back, so there’s been loads of challenges, so a little bit of dissemination there but I’m just a bit gutted for the lads because they didn’t deserve to concede that goal and what shows how important it is that we stay switched on all the way through the game.”
Dave then spoke about todays lineup for the game with him saying “Yes, so I think some of the notable absentees around Bebeto [Gomes] and Conor Pye particularly, I think Bebeto was trained all week, done really well, he’s had an emergency family issue at home so he’s had to go back to Portugal yesterday and Conor’s got that bug that’s going around, so he’s got a chest infection, he was at the doctors and he’s got some antibiotics and steroids, so unfortunate for them to miss out, but that’s why we’ve got the squad that we’ve got.”
He then spoke about todays debutants Louis Jeanne and Tyler James, he said: “ thought they were brilliant, I think Tyler gives us something a little bit different, he offers a lot of third-man runs, he can drive with and without the ball, probably something we haven’t got an awful lot of, I think Alex is the only other player who does that a lot, so I thought they were both really good, I think today there’s a couple of notable performances from individuals for different reasons, I think Reuben’s [Jerome] come back in, he’s had a tough time recently since his injury, for him to come on, I thought he was brilliant against West Didsbury when he came on, he came on today, he scored his goal, made up for him, obviously Tyler and Louis making the debuts, fantastic and what a story it is to see Brad back. He was a bit disappointed, Brad [Carroll], that he never really got hold of the ball properly, but I think the fact that he’s back now, when it was probably a sort of season-ending injury, is testament to his character and his attitude, because not once has he missed a session, not once has he missed a rehab session, not once has he not come to gig and been part of things, so massive, massive kudos to Brad and he got what he just deserved at the end of the game.”
Dave then spoke about the squad he had and potential headaches due to the amount of options with him saying “I hope so, I think, look, there’s been too many incomings and outcomings, I’m not going to get away from that, I think we’ve made some mistakes with recruitments, we’ve had players, people don’t see everything that goes on, they obviously just see a player coming in and out and presume it’s my choice all the time, it’s not that simple, we’ve lost some really good players who we were desperate to keep and for one reason or another, not necessarily because they’re not playing, sometimes they were playing, sometimes they weren’t, lots of different reasons, personal issues, not being able to get their drive and work changes, sometimes players have to do what’s best for them and move on, but the key now is, I think there’s a couple of areas that we need to look at, but the key now is that we go in from next week, maybe the week after, and that’s the squad for the season, we need to stay settled, it needs to be consistent, lads need to know that if they’re on the bench, they might have to wait five, six weeks to get back in, there has been too many changes which, you know, we’ll hold our hands up as staff and I’m sure some of the players will as well, but we’re in a really good place, the squad’s strong and we’ve got 14 games to go, we’ll take it one game at a time, see where we end up.”
To finish the interview Dave then looked ahead to the game against Lower Breck back at Gigg Lane for the first time in 2025.
Dave McNabb: “I don’t think they’ve come much more difficult, I think Lower Breck are probably, them, West Didsbury and Paddy were probably the most informed teams in the league by a country mile, I think that certainly the West Didsbury game a couple of weeks back and the Lower Breck ones were really, really tough games, I think they’ve proved themselves to be title contenders, I think with the form recently and certainly from what I’ve seen, I think they are in and amongst the best teams in the league, so it’s going to be tough but we’re at Gigg, good win today, we look more solid today and I think with the players we’ve got in attacking positions, I think we can hurt anyone, so we’ll go into it full of confidence, we’ve got a full week of training which is massive for us and you know, let’s see who wins.”
