Magpies frontman Ronan Murray spoke to his club’s official website ahead of his side’s League One game at home to Carlisle tomorrow afternoon, Murray understandably hoping for three points from the game for County at Meadow Lane:
“We have got some winnable games coming up, Carlisle at the start and we need to get a win for Greg Abbott there as well as he has got a little thing with them. But, we need to get a win starting on Saturday and the rest will follow. If we can get a couple of wins on the trot then it would put the rest under massive pressure as they all seem to be getting draws and no-one is really pulling away. So, if we can drag them back into it then we will be on a run.
“I probably haven’t faced a bigger week in football, it is a massive week coming up for the football club. We are desperate to stay in this league because the fans have been coming week in and week out and we can’t fault them, but we haven’t really shown what we can do this season. We have only won nine games and it is not good enough and you deserve to get relegated if you are only winning that amount of games. But, we just have to keep digging in and get the wins on the board to get us out of this mess.
“The gaffer [Shaun Derry] is trying to get us going for Greg and hopefully we can do it for him. The pitch out there isn’t the best so you are probably not going to get the prettiest game of football. But, we will give it a go and we will just fight for every ball and get on the second ball and hopefully we have got enough quality in the team to create chances. So, hopefully we can take those chances and put Carlisle to the sword.
“We just to win on Saturday, win no matter how we do it and how we play, win on Saturday and then go again on Tuesday. We haven’t really drawn many and that might be naivety on our part where we have gone for the win. But, after every game where we lose the gaffer comes in and has his chat or his rant or whatever he needs to say, but at the end of it he always says we just have to go again on Monday, and I think the lads have jumped on board with that as there is nothing else you can do.”
In team news for the Magpies tomorrow they look likely to be missing four players, while they also have doubts over another. The first probable pair absent being centre-half and skipper Dean Leacock who has a thigh injury, while central midfielder Andre Boucaud could miss out due to ‘personal problems’. The duo definitely sidelined though are Callum Ball and Gareth Roberts, on-loan Derby striker Ball and left-back Roberts out with respective ankle and leg problems.
The final bit of injury news being that central midfielder Gary Liddle has missed training this week as he continues to make a patchy comeback from an ankle ligament problem he suffered in late December. On the plus side of the coin for County boss Shaun Derry though he does have defensive midfielder Josh Vela available for selection, the 20-year old having signed on an initial 28 day youth from Bolton this afternoon.
The referee for tomorrow's match is Graham Scott from Abingdon in Oxfordshire and he will be assisted down the lines by Joe Clark from Walsall and Richard Wigglesworth from Doncaster. Meanwhile, the fourth official is Nigel Smith from Chesterfield.