|
" I am a bit upset with Saturday to be honest, certainly disappointed with the start after all the hard work that we have done. What it is has said is that too many of the complaints from last year arose again. I want to find out if we are a good side or a poor side and when you leak goals like you do on Saturday then you can never find that out.
" At the minute I think that we are a decent side but if we concede goals like we did, and in the manner of which we did, then we are never going to have the chance to find out how good we can be because it always changes the face of games.
" I think that at half-time most people were quite pleased with the way that we had been playing. Then we give two really poor goals away and then the game is hard work for us. Goals definitely change games and at the minute I want to find out whether we are a good side or whether we are a side that leaks goals too cheaply and gives ourselves a mountain to do.
" It isn't something that you can change overnight and it is something that you have to work at day in and day out. You have to work at your defending right from the top of the team, which is your centre-forward. Then if we defend better as a team then we will be better and we won't concede so many goals.
" Individual errors are something you can't legislate for, I remember watching Liverpool play Manchester United and (Nemanja) Vidic, who I think was outstanding last year, got done from a goal-kick. He got underneath the ball and the lad ran in, I think that it was (Fernando) Torres and finishes the ball off. It happens to the best defenders in the world but that is an individual error, does (Sir) Alex Ferguson drop him for that? - I don't think so.
" We have got to show some sort of confidence in people and we have got to give people chances. We can't just chop and change after 90 minutes of play, we will make a couple of changes for tomorrow, which will remain in my head. They are not just going at people for making people scapegoats, they are changes that I think will make us better tomorrow night and for tomorrow's game against Oldham."
" You can talk about the striker situation as long as you want. We are looking to bring in a striker, common knowledge, everybody knows that. At the minute we have got three that are on our books and I shall be picking maybe one or possibly two of them for tomorrow night. Giving them every opportunity to prove to me that they are decent and that they can do a job for us, as well as carrying on our search for another one.
" The league cup is a massive thing for us and we will be giving it everything that we have got. We need wins wherever they come from, every game I play I play to win, I don't experiment with anything - do you think that it is a good time to experiment? I don't think that any game is less important than the other to be perfectly honest.
" I think that we have got to go into tomorrow night's game with a clear message to everybody that we are trying to win football matches and I will be picking the best team at my disposal tomorrow night. The game - you play part of the game with the ball and part of the game without the ball. So we will be trying as hard as we can when we have got the ball to score, and then when we haven't got it we will be trying as hard as we can to stop them scoring.
" It is not a complicated game, you have got to do better with and without the football. We gave soft goals away on Saturday and didn't create, or make sure that we put our chances in the back of the net. So we will be doing our utmost tomorrow to make sure that we rectify Saturday's performance.
" I would love to give a time guideline to everybody on signings because I wish that I knew it myself. You can't though because there is no time guideline, I would like one in by the end of today if I could possibly do that but it might not happen. To say to you Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, a week on Monday or a week on Tuesday, I am guessing in the wind really.
" I have got to keep doing what I am doing and that is making phone call after phone call and enquiry after enquiry for a number of players. If they happen then they happen and when they do then I can let everybody know. I think that what we have got to be careful of is the expressing that we are very, very close and something crops up and doesn't allow that to happen. Then people get disappointed more so than they are if they just say that I am working towards it. "
" I am working desperately hard to do something and the rest of my staff are trying desperately hard as well to do something. The time thing is not an easy question to answer, it is not me trying to hide anything or keep anything from anybody, it is a just nigh-on impossible question to answer.
" I think that the crowd were comfortable at the weekend. We got a real round of applause coming off at half-time and I think that they want to see more of that. They want to see more determination at both ends of the pitch I think. They want results, fans want their team to win and at any cost.
" You can paper over poor performances with a win. Leeds United, poor performance, got a result against Exeter. Nobody is bothered about it because they get it eventually, but come Monday morning they are a good side and they are a winning side because they have won, but they were very poor.
" People like Norwich and Swindon might be thinking that they are poor sides as well, they have got beaten heavily and beaten out of sight. So everybody has got their own problems, I think what we have got to be careful of is making rash decisions after one game. We have had a long term idea of what we need and what we don't need. At the minute now we are in a better decision to do something about the things we need than we have been over the summer.
" We have got to find out if Danny Livesey and Richard Keogh can't play together. At times last season it didn't work and at times it did work. Are we making them scapegoats for one performance, I think that it would be unfair to me to make a rash decision to say that Saturday's result was down to either of them.
" We know that we have got options in that position if we think that we need to do so, and if I think that I need to make changes then I will do. They will be given an opportunity to see if it works again, and if quite clearly it doesn't then we do something about it. I think that if you look at Saturday's goals though then it would be rather cheap just to blame those two when really neither was involved directly in the goals that we conceded. "