United boss Greg Abbott (GA) spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's James Phillips (JP) at Tuesday morning's press conference for the local media, Abbott in the opening part of a lengthy interview first talking about his holiday plans this summer :
JP
Are you managing to get away this summer?
GA
I will be eventually yeah when I have got rid of you lot. We are going away on a family holiday at the back end of June, so hopefully I have done my work and I can come back after that and be ready to rumble again.
JP
So, a month’s deadline on everything then, we can start pestering you for a month?
GA
Yeah, if you want, well you do anyway, it doesn’t matter whether I say you don’t or you do. It is one of them, it is that stage of the season where there is loads going on but we are pretty secretive about it all aren’t we because we need to sort of keep our cards close to our chest until things actually happen. There is a lot of speculation and rumours, I am getting used to that now and I am probably a lot more comfortable with it than I have been before. I just hope it is the same answer that we come back stronger than we were, we need to be a little bit stronger and hopefully try to do a little bit better, so there is going to be a lot of hard work going into getting that.
JP
Can you take it as a compliment now when people are speculating about you, your players, your club, a sign of how well you are doing?
GA
Yeah, well they only speculate in terms of attracting people from our club if they are doing alright, that is players, staff and all that sort of thing. So, it is sort of like a back handed compliment, but you tend to take it just as what it is. You are employed by a football club and you absolutely work your hardest, that is from the chairman right the way down, and that is what we do. We are getting ready now to prepare the squad for another assault on the division, it will be another tough division, another tough year and we are going to see where we can go with it.
JP
Is it in the same way as it is flattering for your players to be talked about, is it flattering as a manager as well to have people in the press and wherever talking about you as a potential new manager for x, y or z club?
GA
It is more flattering than being the next one to be talked about that is going to get the sack, let's put it that way.
JP
So you prefer that conversation?
GA
I would rather be talking to you about a move upwards than a move downwards yeah, that is absolutely for sure.
JP
What things were you proudest of this season?
GA
I think probably exhausting all the resources we have got, people talk about the fact that we have talked about the financial side of it. I think it is becoming more important in the game throughout the country that clubs are sometimes only as good as what they have got. We are trying to be better than what we have got and in terms of that you have to, whatever you get you get a figure and you have to use all that wisely and you use it to the best of its ability.
I think as a club we absolutely exhausted everything we have got and used most of it in the right direction. So, for that we have to take a fair amount of credit, it is just not myself, that is everybody, I don’t mean myself, it is everybody from the chairman down. I think we will be in that situation again this season where we won’t be blessed with the most money available in the division, but if we spend it as wise as anybody else then it gives us that fighting chance that people are looking for.
JP
Have you had, well I am sure you have had a budget given to you, without the cups and without perhaps some of the gate that you wanted is it a bit of a reduction on where you have been in previous seasons?
GA
Just things are going to be tight again, the club is going to be running itself on a prudent basis. If x comes in then x goes out, we can’t spend x and y if only x comes in. I don’t want to come across as too black and white layman’s terms, but that is as it is. I think the club has got to run as a business like a proper business would run itself, and it can’t spend more than comes in. If we can generate more money through gates, through player sales, through cup runs, through things like that, then I would hope I would be given a fair bit of that back to keep the season progressing. If we don’t get any of those then we have to work with what we have got.
JP
All your young fans will be doing maths question now, I thought we were going to get into one of those algebra ones for a moment just then?
GA
It won’t be that difficult to work out if I can do it I can assure you. So, the kids with their algebra will be far better than me, I can tell you that right now.
JP
What do you look back on from this season just gone then and regret, or perhaps not regret, but what do you look back on and think we should have done that differently, next time we will do that differently?
GA
I don’t think there is much we can have regret on because there were a lot of success stories. The one thing that people throw at that is that we probably didn’t cope with Lee (Miller’s) injury as well as we might have done. We took a slight gamble in the fact that leading up to his injury we were in good form, the team was doing well, and we sort of looked at it and thought there were five or six games to go.
He got actually injured in the first game after the loan window shut and that was probably one in hindsight if we are in the same position regardless of whether a new signing would play or not, he is probably the only player of his type at the club. We can play different systems and we can play different styles, if we want to play the way we want to play we probably needed to get that type of player in which we didn’t have.
Maybe next season if we are in the same position, which generally doesn’t happen, come the last bit of the loan window we might do something about that situation. But, have too many regrets? I don’t think so, I think we were just hit with a genuine piece of bad luck at a really, really critical time, and I just think that happens.
You look at Chelsea winning the European Cup and they probably weren’t on paper the best team, although they spent thousands and millions and they still probably weren’t the strongest and best team. But, I think from right back to the Napoli game, every little bit of luck that was being given out in that particular competition went Chelsea’s way.
I think clubs like us need that type of luck even at our level, and we didn’t get that, hence the couple of injuries, couple of suspensions, couple of decisions gone against us. It was a really fine line between us being sixth and eighth, and we were only a couple of points short in the end. So, we can’t have too many regrets, maybe just sometimes it just purely goes down to the rub of the green. But, hopefully next season, because it does work itself round, we get that bit of luck.
JP
What did you make of Chelsea winning the Champions League then?
GA
I just think it was a victory for a team up against the odds and up against the people out there in terms of the expectancy. But, they worked absolutely to their maximum, they had a teamshape and a gameplan that they carried out to the letter, and even then we could be talking about Arjen Robben scoring a penalty and it is all over and they lose, and everyone is saying that they didn’t really play well enough to win the game. But, he missed the penalty, they won the game and nobody really cares sort of even a week down the line how they have done it, they have done it and they are European champions.
Nobody is talking about Didier Drogba’s ridiculous challenge for the penalty, they are all talking about him being a superhero for scoring a goal and he could have actually cost them the game. That is how fine margins are and how perceptions of performances are in hindsight. But, he is a hero at the minute and well done to him for that, but I wouldn’t have been too pleased with him as a manager for the tackle he made which could have cost them the championship.