|
" I like my anniversary with the team but I don't like my anniversaries, I hate birthdays. I am a miserable man today, it is not very nice when you get to 27 and you have got to start celebrating another year. So we will call it a draw shall we, shall we crack on with the football.
" I am excited about Tuesday night and there is a big excitement around the whole place at the moment, the players have earned that with their performances of late. The club as a whole is a nicer place to be at the minute. Tuesday's game has got a real significance to it where it is a chance for us to progress in a competition, it is a chance to keep an unbeaten run going. It is just rewards and bonuses for winning games as we go along.
" So the players are in great spirits this morning, it is an unbelievably different place is a football club when you are winning and confidence is growing and the belief is there. They have been buoyant today so we want to make sure we don't take our foot off the pedal and we keep this momentum thing going, and another reason for it being a significant game.
" I like the people there at Bradford City, it was very similar to Carlisle, this club, when I first went to Bradford. There are a lot of good people, a really terrific group of fans and a club that was on the up. We nearly got into the Premiership but lost in the first ever play-offs to go into the Premiership, it was Division One then. But I lived with Stuart McCall for two years in my time at Bradford, we both played alongside each other in midfield, we lived with each other for two years.
" He is a great guy, I love him to bits and it is nice to see him managing. I know what sort of game we are going to be in for because I know what type of guy he is. But it will be great to see him, great to see the people running the club, because they generally are the same, and the fans as well were very good to me in my time there. So it is just a nice football game for me but ultimately I am very much in the blue corner at the minute and we want to see ourselves kick on and enjoy the night but get a win at the end of it.
" I don't have any emotions about plotting their downfall, it ends there. I have said my nice things about Bradford City, I am plotting a victory or trying to plan a victory. That is my job, that is what we have to do, so there won't be any sentiment there as I am sure there won't be from Stuart's side. They will be trying to win the game too. So it is important that we have done our work today after Saturday, and we are going cliché time, one at a time, but every game is another one out of the way. And come away unscathed and progression still being made. So that is what we will try to do again. "
" I just think things like Wembley and league positions and all that come off the back of winning games. So the key is to keep winning, because rewards come off the back of winning, you don't get many rewards for losing. I have not found many in my career, losing a game and getting a reward out of it. So I think the key is to keep the momentum going and keep trying to win games, and off the back of that all the bonuses accrue themselves.
" Richard Offiong is improving but I think he is going to be the other side of Christmas and possibly into the New Year. We are hopeful the first week around or about the Everton game that Richard will be back available, so that is one, Dolly (Neil Dalton) is working hard, he is one we can't rush but he is getting better.
" David Raven again is long-term, there is no point trying to pin down a time for that one and Paul Thirlwell is slow. It is slow and it frustrating and he is not good company at the minute really. He is a bit down on himself because he wants to be part of the team, to be fair to Paul that was when we were on a run of bad results, he just wants to be part of playing football. He doesn't like being injured and he has spent too much time in there for his own good. So he is going to be slow, but again, we couldn't put a time on that because it is building his hopes up and it is not getting him anywhere.
" Of course it is important to stay on these good runs because ultimately the play-offs is our goal isn't it. It is a realistic option if we can go another ten games unbeaten, then I would think we would right up in amongst that play-offs situation. But it is a cheap statement at the minute in terms of it is not as easy as that. We have got to work exceptionally hard as a group, the staff, the players, the fans, the board, everybody has got to work exceptionally hard to go another ten games unbeaten.
" We have worked terrifically hard to get the situation as it stands, two defeats in 13 I think it is now, it sounds nice but it has been hard work and we have got to do that again. If we want to have any real chances of being in the play-offs we have got to put another run like that together. I think we are capable of it but it doesn't come easily, it is going to be another bulk of hard work, but we are up for the challenge and let's hope we can do it.
" You can't help but heap pressure on me can you but at least it is a better pressure than it was when we were down by the relegation thing. So I like that sort of pressure, that is not pressure to me, that is a good situation to be in. "