Dennis Booth - Radio Cumbria Interview

Last updated : 14 July 2009 By Thetashkentterror

Dennis Booth
United assistant manager Dennis Booth spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's James Phillips on Tuesday evening as he talked about Carlisle's training camp down at Colchester this week, Booth later discussing the continuing search for a new striker :


" It's a training camp, the boys are working hard morning and afternoon, and the weather has been quite warm, well apart from now because it is raining very heavy down here. They have looked very good though and we are very pleased with the attitude and the spirit in the squad. So we are looking forward to a good season but we want to try to bring a couple more players in if we possibly can.

" Sometimes you get people going to Marbella and places like that but this fits in, it is a lovely place. We have been here before, it is a football hotel, they have coaching sessions here, lots of teams stay. The pitch is just on the grounds, everything is here for us, the weight rooms, the saunas, the swimming pool, so it really is quiet and that is what you want because we are here to work, we have trained twice today.

" It is not a holiday and I think that it is good to go get away all together, and we have got a couple of players that have just joined us, the goalkeeper Lenny Pidgeley and Tom Taiwo. It is good, they get to know players better in this kind of environment. You are living in one and other's pockets all the time, you are eating together all the time, they are not shooting off and having a meal.

" We live in one and other's pockets and it is good, we are all together at meal times and we are all together at training. It makes it far easier to get to know your players and they form relationships. So we are quite pleased with that and they have settled in very well have both of them. "



" Tom Taiwo is from Leeds and he went down to Chelsea as a young boy. I think that Greg (Abbott) was instrumental in bringing him through at Leeds. He is a tenacious little midfield player and obviously when you have been to Chelsea then you have got good pedigree. So we are looking forward to Tom settling in well, I am sure that he will do, he will be a good acquisition to the football club.

" I have seen their reserves, I have come down to London a couple of times and Chelsea have got lots of players there that Chelsea want to get out and get first-team experience because they have got such a fantastic squad at Chelsea. You are struggling to get a game in the reserves really so it is good for these boys to come out and it is good for Chelsea as well, so we are quite happy with that arrangement.

" We try to form relationships with clubs and people, I have a lot of contacts and so does Greg. This is what we try to do because players, they would sooner have their players out playing in real football, in competitive football. It is better for their development and they can monitor them as well, which they do, and maybe they go back and they can possibly break into their squad.

" If they don't then obviously we have had that player, we know what he is like and then he could probably come to us. So I think that it works well for both people, because at the end of the day playing league football is what it is about. No disrespect to the reserves but the real football is what you want to do and play in."



" We are always looking, we never stop looking, that is for certain, I will be out at a game again tomorrow and so will Greg in this area. We never stop looking, we are always monitoring players and people have given us players to look at and we get on our bike. We have to do that as a football club at Carlisle, we can't just sit there, we have to get out and have a look at players.

" We know players but it is important that we go and see them, and we can't just always go on people's recommendations. It can mean quite a bit of travelling but we are prepared to do that. So we are always looking and we will do right throughout the season, because we are always trying to build when players leave. Like Danny Graham, you need to have targets that you can go for, you can't just sit there when a player leaves and you are scratching your head thinking where do we go.

" We are always there, we have them down, we know who is available, the goalkeepers right through, we try to do our homework so we are not caught out if a player is transferred. Because Carlisle is a smaller club as we know and when people come in with big money bids we can't refuse it really, and for the player's sake as well as the club's sake. So we have to be up to scratch on everything that we do, we try very hard to do that.

" Everybody wants to try to get people in but nobody can guarantee that even if we got someone who is a guaranteed scorer, it doesn't mean to say that he is going to come in and score them for Carlisle. No-one knows that but we certainly hope that they do and we monitor players. At the end of the day though we can't compete with some of the clubs in our division that are paying £300,000 for players. "



" We know that so we have to work as hard on the scouting side and try to get people in and hopefully we can develop them as well. We would love to have somebody to score 25 goals next season and then all the others chipping in. We are going to get someone in, there will be no doubt about that, we are working very hard and it is hard for us but we will do it. We will do it, there is no doubt about that because we are determined.

" We have got a good group of players, we have got a good spirit, which will take you so far but then we have got to kick on from there. We want to have a really good season and a crack at it next season and we are doing what we can to do it. I am out here tonight watching a game and I will be out again tomorrow night and so will Greg, so we are not just training down here, we are putting a lot of work in.

" He (Matty Robson) has come from a different club and clubs play differently. Matty has got to get used to how we want to play, that is always a problem. We have spoken to Matty about it though and he understands that when the full-backs are getting the ball we want him pushing on there and getting at their full-back and not dropping on so deep and sitting back in there. He has picked that up and he is an intelligent player so that is only a little adjustment to his game.

" He is very strong, a very strong upper body, a very strong player. He looks more like a middleweight boxer than a footballer, so he has got that strength as well. Which in today's football you need a bit of strength and to be an athlete. He is settling in very well though and we hope that he is going to improve us as a team.

" Wide areas are always important in most teams, or in every team really. If you have got two people, and Cleveland (Taylor) has come back, and fair credit to Cleveland, he is training and he is his bubbly self. He really lights the place up and he is really having a go at it, he is not sulking or anything, he has come back and he looks really happy. So we will get on with that situation, Cleveland is happy with it and so are we at the moment. "



" Going from promotion challenging to battling relegation can happen, I have seen that happen before at football clubs. You can rest on your laurels, and we certainly didn't do that, we had a great season, then a great start to the season and then in the middle of it we hit a terrible patch and we couldn't get ourselves out of it.

" You have to break that circle and we found it very difficult to do that, and we got deeper and deeper into trouble. We stuck in though, we stuck in, when people look back they will say that it was the last game but if you look back at that last eight or nine games we only lost once. Unfortunately for us though we conceded some goals in the last minutes due to either lack of concentration or sometimes really bad luck when they were getting deflections.

" We put that to one side though and we knew what we had to do, the battling performance at Cheltenham with nine men for about 15, 16 or 17 minutes you know, where we came under extreme pressure. In the end though we nearly won the game with the breakaway. Nobody wants to go through that again, we want to be pushing at the top of the league or up that league, we don't want that again, nobody wants that whichever division you are in.

" I am sure that the supporters don't want that but from a supporters' point of view, I thought that in the last game of the season when we needed to win that they were fantastic. It was a great response from our supporters and we need that all the time because it does help, and they were fantastic, and we really put Millwall on the back-foot and they roared us on right through to the end. So we are looking up, everybody in the football club is looking for a very good season and a positive season, without doubt. "