United boss Greg Abbott (GA) spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's Paul Newton (PN) at Tuesday afternoon's press conference for the local media, Abbott in the opening part of a lengthy interview talking about his lack of post-match reaction after Saturday's 4-2 home defeat against Bournemouth:
GA
What I would like to do before we kick on is make an apology to all the supporters for not attending the press conference on Saturday and just giving an explanation. Because, I am as tough as they come in terms of accepting responsibility, but the reason I didn’t come up to see you was because there was a lot of things I had to say to the players after Saturday’s performance.
There are a lot of things they needed to know from my side, and I have shown tremendous loyalty to that group, and I have stuck with them through thick and thin and accepted all responsibility for everything. Saturday I had to say to them some things that needed saying right at that particular moment, which disabled me from coming up to speak to you.
It was never a case that I was sulking, never a case that I was hiding from any responsibility, but I had to speak to the players and it took me until about twenty to six before I had finished that situation and delivered what I considered my side of where the club is right now, where the club needs to be and what needs to be done to take the club forward.
So, I need to get that out on record and there was never any reason for me ever to not face the press or supporters in a difficult situation. I needed to say that to everybody and hopefully it doesn’t happen too many times again and I don’t have to spend an hour and a quarter after a game talking to them when I need to be talking to the supporters. But, hopefully whatever they thought of the game on Saturday they will accept and respect what I have just said.
I think at the end of the day when this club does well and when we have won cups at Wembley and when we have won league games and when we have had fantastic results at home or away, generally I would let the players take their fair share of the pats on the back. When there is a blip it is sort of me that wants to take all the criticism, but in respect of the loyalty I have shown the players I expect them to show me that same loyalty and that same determination.
I will tell you now, on Saturday individual players, bar probably two didn’t do their jobs and that is a real worry and that is a real concern for the players. Because, it doesn’t really matter who is sat managing or who is picking teams or who is doing coaching sessions, if players aren’t capable of facing up to their responsibilities and carrying out their duties to a level then they are going to suffer, they will suffer.
They will suffer initially and then the club will suffer after that, so I reminded them that they have to show a level of performance that is much, much better, certainly in the defensive side of the game because at times some of the stuff was alright. Some of the attacking stuff was OK and their manager (Eddie Howe) said so the same.
But, that is not good enough for us a club going forward to concede goals like we have done. We need to take stock of that and players need to take responsibility, and that was the key to the lack of defensive performance on Saturday, that players didn’t do their jobs as well as they should do and need to do to have careers in this industry.
PN
Yeah, defensively it does seem as though the same mistakes are being made week in, week out, how do you explain that?
GA
Well, you can’t explain mistakes, you go through periods where mistakes are made in a more frequent basis. But, what I have got to try to do is make allowances for that situation maybe to happen, but I can’t cover every base, I can’t stop people falling over, I can’t stop people tracking runners, I can’t stop people tripping up over the ball in front of our goalkeeper and things like that.
I can’t do that, once the players cross the white line they have got jobs and responsibilities to do and we don’t train or coach or defend any different to what we did last year when we had an unbeaten run at home of 20-odd games and the season before when we went ‘x’ amount of defensive record, we haven’t done anything different and a lot of the personnel are still there.
So, sometimes players have to stand up and take responsibility along with the manager, and I think it is a coincidence that mistakes are all happening in a glut because the players are no different to the ones that we have had success with in the same positions. So, we have to look at a way at the minute of making sure that doesn’t happen, allowing those players to get a little bit more confidence and belief in their game back, and then I think you should see a different performance or a different defensive position that we need to be in.
That is the way it is and the longer it goes when we concede goals they will get a little bit more nervy. I mean Frank (Simek) has been one of our consistent performers, you don’t notice him that much because he just gets on with his job. He has been pretty consistent during the period and then you saw the effect it had on him, he makes two mistakes in the game and then he gets a little bit of stick from the crowd and his confidence and his belief level sapped to an all-time low.
He is the most determined character here, very quiet, but came in Monday, wanted a word with me, wanted to explain his own situation and where his mind was. He is very, very determined to do something about it, which is a key reaction and that is what we need from everybody. It is people shirking away from that responsibility knowing they made mistakes and they are happy for somebody else to take the blame.
I think sometimes players would be happy for me to take all the blame, but I think fans would actually see behind that. Because, I don’t think the fans made an unbelievable cry at me personally, because at the end of the day once they go on the pitch they are responsible for their own actions. We know and I know that the players are better than that, if they don’t improve as individuals then they are going to find themselves in danger. Nobody can shirk a responsibility when they have not performed to the levels we absolutely know they can, because they have done it before.
To that there has been a real glut of injuries to key players at key times, losing Paul (Thirlwell) has been a massive blow, Lee Miller has been a massive blow, I have been without Jon-Paul McGovern, I have been without Rory Loy, all my senior players that I have needed, and again already I have lost Matty Robson, I could be losing Matty Robson for the weekend, I could be losing Chris Chantler for the weekend.
As a manager I am looking at where we go with the actual players we have got left and it is a really, really tough situation. So, I am going to tell everybody that this is going to be one hell of a tough afternoon because at the minute Dolly (Neil Dalton) is working overtime trying to get some of those players back on the training field.
Peter Murphy hasn’t trained since Saturday with his tight hamstring, so we are actually nowhere to go in terms of squad at the moment because of the injuries to key players. That is something that has hampered us all season and we thought before Saturday we were just getting everybody back and we have had a massive wallop with Paul’s injury, Chris Chantler’s thing, Matty Robson’t back locks up on Monday, it is not easy.
PN
The defence last season gave away too many soft goals and nothing has changed this season, that defensive frailty hasn’t been properly addressed, what would you say about that?
GA
Well, I think we start defending from the front and we have lost Lee Miller, so when Lee Miller plays we keep the ball at the other end of the field a lot longer than we do at the minute, so the ball keeps coming back to us. We decided to play a system with 4-4-2 which leaves us a little bit shallower in midfield because we have got players that are really attack-minded and want to go forward leaving gaps.
So, we have been exposed a little bit, we thought we rectified that with going back to the three men, we were trying Joe (Garner) up there on his own, we thought it worked against Oldham, apart from the soft penalty that could have been our first clean sheet for a while. The two goals that get conceded first-half against Bournemouth are mistakes, but we brought in Mike (Edwards) and Mike has got 400 games under his belt, he has been one of the most consistent defenders in the league for ten years.
We think that would have been a help but you can’t point any fingers at any one player because you concede as a group of eleven. But, I think as a group we have not been as tough as we have needed to be, we have conceded goals that have been really, really cheap. Like I said to the players, is that telling me that they are not doing their jobs properly and we need to then look at something else?
But, I have got belief in those players and I have shown them that and I have shown the loyalty by consistently picking them. There might be a stage where if things don’t improve that we have to look at maybe something different, and that is what happens. But, at the minute we are only talking about last season an unbelievable unbeaten run at home, so we can’t get ridiculously panicky about what is happening, but there needs to be a situation that is resolved pretty urgently otherwise we are going to be in trouble.
Again, do you think all the injuries have helped me? It has not been easy with key players and one of our most destructive players in terms of stopping teams scoring has just got injured and is probably out for two to three weeks, Paul who gives us that defensive insurance and allows Bez (James Berrett) and Nobs (Liam Noble) to get forward. But, we could lose him and we have got a lot of young inexperienced players out there at the moment asking them to do men’s jobs.
In times like this you need real men, real warriors and they have sort of spent more time with Dolly than they have with me, and that is another sort of small explanation at the end of the day. We know we need to be better, I am not going to throw away that criticism too lightly because they are right, we have not defended well enough this season and it is something that has to be addressed.