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JP
What do you think of that with Martin O'Neill and Nigel Reo-Coker there, it is interesting, is it something you have ever seen yourself as a player, or dare I even say have you experienced something like it as a manager?
GA
You have incidents like that now and again within your own football club, you don't want to harp too much on about them, you don't want them to happen too many times. But passions run high, emotions run high at times and things like that happen now and again, but you have to deal with them.
If both sides are doing it for the right reasons with the passion and the emotions at stake then it is not a major problem I would think. Once the manager has had his final say the player would calm down and you just get on with it and draw a line under it. You don't tend to hold grudges and stuff like that but it is not stuff you would want to happen too often, but it does happen now and again.
JP
Nothing like that happened to you and your players this week then?
GA
Not this week, this week has been a nice steady week. I certainly don't think I was the ideal player to manage when I was playing but certainly this week we have had a good week. A terrific week, the boys always respond well with the training, they are very good in training in the week and we hope to take that through to Saturday's game.
JP
What sort of things have you been working on as you look to do things differently I guess from the match against Brighton six days ago?
GA
What we are looking at this week is obviously both ends of the field. Where we have worked on our toughness, back to clean sheets, that is the key to what we do, if we get a result tomorrow the clean sheet is the key. We have worked very hard on the defensive side of our game and then we have worked every single day this week on when the ball goes into the box.
Our movement from our strikers and then back support from our midfield players getting them a little bit higher up the pitch if things get cleared, that we are on the edge of the box to do something about that. But the key is the movement, is making sure that we are on the move in the box.
(Nicky) Forster really throughout the game last week was anonymous for large periods but had three chances, one was disallowed and two he put in the back of the net through being on the move and gambling in the box. That is the key to good strikers, they make themselves non-existent for large periods of the game and then come up with the goods in the penalty area.
JP
You said earlier this week that you would be looking in the players' eyes to see who would be hungry for the match, have you seen that desire then?
GA
Yeah, I have to say that we have got a good group of players, a good group of people that work very, very hard during the week and they all want the same thing as me. That is the whole 20 that we have got, the senior professionals and the slightly younger ones there, they work very well alongside me and my backroom staff.
We all want the same thing and we are honest enough with each other, we are looking at that respect both ways and they train very, very hard. They are upset about the result on Saturday, the performance was OK but the result in terms of the amount of possession we had wasn't what we are looking for. They are as keen as I am to do something about it.
JP
And you have already beaten Oldham this season in the cup, what did you learn from them that day?
GA
Probably not a great deal you know. People might look at it and say that psychologically we are ahead because we have beaten them once. They were poor on the night, we weren't great that night, it was probably one of our worst performances at home all season to be honest with you. But we ground out a result and that is the sort of resolve and the sort of determination we need to see more often. That when we are not playing quite as well at times that we can grind out 1-0 results.
That is the key to keeping clean sheets, you are always going to get a chance in the game, albeit in the 88th or 89th minute or whatever it was when Scott Dobie scored with a header and we win the game. So we take that into Saturday's game as a reminder. I have to use it as a positive for us that we have beaten them once already and they haven't quite gelled as a team and they are the sort of things we will be talking about tomorrow before the game.
JP
And when you talk about late chances, of course Richard Offiong had and got into a good position for a late chance last weekend. Is he going to be in line for his first start in League One?
GA
Well he has certainly put himself in the frame hasn't he. He did a couple of things last week in the period he had on the pitch. Certainly he should have scored with the header but he was in the right position at the right time but he hasn't managed to finish that off, that happens. He has gone past a defender (Adam Virgo) very, very easily, which was good to see and certainly gives us something different, so he will certainly be in my thoughts for tomorrow.
JP
You did say in Tuesday's press conference that you might tell everybody on Thursday or Friday, is there any chance you are going to give away whether he is in that starting line-up?
GA
I did say that I might tell everybody and I have changed my mind, I am not going to tell anybody. I don't want to give anything away to Oldham, obviously I care about my fans and our people but I am certainly not going to give anything away to Oldham. So they will have to wait and see what we decide to do come two o'clock tomorrow.
JP
Some fans felt that you missed Tom Taiwo at the weekend as well, he was of course on your bench, just his tenacity in midfield. Do you expect him to be back in there for you?
GA
He is in the frame, again they are the big decisions we have to make. But what we have said to the players is that we have got a source, 20 is not a big squad, considering some of the players at the back end of that 20 are young players, untried and not quite just ready. So we have got a big period of games coming up and over that period everybody will be getting their chances to show us what they can do and we will be utilising I would imagine the whole of the squad.
So we have to wait and see what we do with it and big decisions have to be made. Hopefully we will get it right tomorrow but there is another game on Tuesday and there is another game on Saturday so we will have a look at all that and take as it is comes.