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I think there has been a constant criticism of the style of play, of the systems we play. But I think Saturday, which probably brought it to a head where I don't read any sort of stuff about the club, I don't read about what it is not right and what is right and all that stuff.
Because you can get yourself into a situation where you listen too much to what everyone else wants and not what you actually want yourself, or your staff want. We have got 5,000 fans and if you put 5,000 opinions together you will find a tactical genius, if you put 5,000 different opinions together you will find a tactical genius, alright.
What we have to do is we have to put all those opinions into a hat and look at them and look at the players we have got available and look at where we are as a football club, and the finance levels we have got and the type of player we can bring in.
We have to compete on a level footing as Leeds United and Southampton, and do you know what?, the first person I would buy would be Rickie Lambert for £1million. But does that make me a good manager or a bad manager?
I would play two upfront if I had Rickie Lambert in there and maybe Lee Novak or Jordan Rhodes from Huddersfield or Jermaine Beckford from Leeds, or even Joe Anyinsah fit alongside Rickie Lambert. You would play those types of players but we haven't got £1 million and we can't afford Rickie Lambert.
I just wonder does that make Alan (Pardew) a better manager than myself that he can play Rickie Lambert? I think I would play Rickie Lambert if I could but I can't, so I have got to try to find a way of competing without that type of player, without a £1million centre-forward.
Then what we have to do is try to pick the right formulas and with 5,000 opinions you would have a tactical genius on your hands. But we have to look at what we have got and we haven't got as much as we would like and we can't put 5,000 different teams out.
We have to put one team out and that team is based on what we have just talked about. It is constructed on the reasons for and against who we are playing and what type of player we have got available.
We have had injury problems upfront, all season we have had injury problems upfront. I think in light of Saturday and the criticism we had, and you hear a lot of it and I feel that I have got to come out and I have got to explain reasons why we do things. So at least the fans understand why we are doing stuff.
What I don't want to do and what I don't expect to do is open up a massive debate on why he should play or he shouldn't play. We have got people on the pitch that if they make a bad pass they are criticised and if other players on the pitch make a bad pass there is nothing said.
All we are asking for is understanding and support for everybody, and to an extent 5,000 people have regularly come through the turnstiles. But what I am doing is giving them the respect of offering the explanation as to some of the grumbles that I hear on the grapevine throughout the week.
Because people always want to tell you where you are going wrong, always they do. As a manager, you probably don't understand that with respect, but they always want to tell you where you are going wrong, you are always telling me where I am going wrong.
To an extent I have to try to give you an explanation or a reason for why we are going wrong, and that is what I am doing from Saturday and that is what I am doing as regards to the whole season why we have done certain things. But when you go back to what we talked about at the start of the conversation, a lot of what we have done must have been right for us to achieve what we have done.
The season hasn't been perfect, the season hasn't been football fantasia week in and week out. But I tell you what, some of it has been decent, you look at MK Dons home and away and Bristol Rovers at home and Norwich and Charlton and Southampton at home and teams like that.
And you think that some of the football has been pretty damn good, and some of it has been pretty damn awful. But if you speak to all the guys and managers of clubs underneath us, and even around or about us, Walsall and Brentford and stuff, they will have had some dire performances as well.
We have to take them on the chin whether we like them or not and I don't like them any more than the fans like them. But I think what I am asking for is a fair criticism and an understanding of what we are as a football club and where we are as a football club, and what we are trying to achieve, what we have achieved and where we are trying to get to.
JP
I do think it has been a good season for you and I do think a lot of the fans definitely acknowledge that. But you talk about wanting not to have the Danny Graham situation for next summer, wanting to get the players in in the right areas that you have got.
To your credit you have got the club safe way before the end of the season but you still need the fans between now and the end of the season, you still need them as well to be thinking about the club over the summer, looking ahead to the coming next season.
So they will want to be entertained over these last few games and you are saying that that almost can't be the case in these last few games. Why should they come and watch you if you don't have any strikers or you don't have any delivery from the wide areas?
GA
Well I can't drag them out of the treatment room, they are not fit, I can't drag them out of the treatment room. Of course they have every right to expect good football, of course they have, that is an absolute 100%. I would love to be able to get Matty Robson and Kevan Hurst on the pitch and Jason Price on the pitch, and Joe Anyinsah on the pitch and Gary Madine and Scott Dobie on the pitch.
I would love to be able to do all that but the fact of the matter is I can't, they are not available, they actually are injured players. So my hands are tied a little bit, we are going to Southampton under strength a little bit. Now I am not offering excuses, I am offering hard facts.
I have no wingers fit, Matty Robson started every single game until after the cup final, the same as Kevan Hurst near enough. Now we are bringing in an 18-year old (Ben Marshall) who is playing on the wrong side but doing a great job as well I might add.
But we haven't got the type of personnel I want to play the type of football right now because of injury. Over the summer I know where I am going with strengthening, I know where I am going with strengthening and that should excite the fans that we are going out into the market to try to find players that will make us better in an attacking sense.
But also we need to stop leaking goals, and like I am saying to you, it is not just as easy to say let's go out and play attacking football at Southampton, let's go out and play great football. Because do you know what?, they have got some hell of a good players and they did have at Wembley.
If we had had five or six of our injured players fit and available and well we might have given them a better game, and we might have given Leeds United a better game. We might have given Oldham a turning over, I think we probably would have done, but the fact is they are injured players that I can't call on at the moment.
So the strength in depth that we have got left is probably not the quality that we have got added to the ones we have got in the treatment room. Not an excuse, a really fair explanation I think, yes the fans can expect everything, they can expect the world.
But somewhere along the line reality has to kick in to think have a bit of sympathy with him because he hasn't got his strongest side available. He hasn't got a lot of his experienced players available and we are up against it a little bit. Oldham were fighting for their lives, and I will tell you what, their football was terrible by the way.
JP
You have talked about not wanting to play Ryan Bowman and even a player like say Steven Swinglehurst, but when you have got a game like Oldham at home on Saturday, a team below you.
If there is something that could get the fans a bit excited as has been the case with some of the other youngsters, Tom Aldred for instance who has come into the team, is that not more the game because you surely can't put in a load of youngsters away at Southampton?
GA
Listen, if we played the Dog and Duck on a Saturday afternoon we would beat them 25-0, we would do because my players are better than their players, they are, they are professional players. Now you are saying throw in….. players have got to deserve appearances and Ryan Bowman, it is perfect for him, he is getting 15 or 20 minutes.
He is not ready to play yet, he is 17-years old (18-yo - ed), he hasn't even signed a professional contract yet. He is not quite ready yet, you are putting him up against Sean Gregan who is a 32-year old/33-year old (36-yo - ed) wonderfully experienced player that is one of the toughest in the game, now is that fair?
I know you are talking about experience and of course we want those players to get some experience and we have done that. We had an average of 21 in the team that finished at Brighton so nobody can start saying….. Steven Swinglehurst is not ready, not ready.
The thing you will do then by throwing into them situations like that is you will destroy their confidence and destroy them. You are asking young men to do man's jobs and of course we want to give players opportunities, we have with Tom and Ryan and Gary Madine and Tom Taiwo and Ben Marshall.
We can't get much younger than that otherwise we would be forced into playing almost a youth team and people would say that we were not bothered what happens to the end of the season. That is what you get thrown back at you, you are not bothered, you are not caring, you are just throwing these kids in.
We are still trying to win games, and it might not look like it on Saturday but I will tell you what we were. We didn't play anything like the type of football we want to do mainly because we didn't have the quality that we wanted on the pitch because of certain injuries and certain lack of personnel. And actually the way Oldham did play the game, because they didn't play any football, not in a million years did they play football.
JP
So what do you need to do this Saturday then with the match at Southampton, and how do you need the supporters to come with you in one of your phrases?
GA
What we do is look at what we have got available and go down there and roll our sleeves up. It will be a lovely pitch, we will probably be able to pass the ball a lot better on there because the pitch will allow us to, and give a really good account of ourselves.
That is what we are going to go down and do and try our hardest to get another result. Which will be very tough because they are probably the best side in the division at the minute along with Norwich, the best side. Take their points away and their bad start and they would have been up there with Norwich walking away with this league.
So we are going to a place where they are favourites, in real terms, in reality terms they are favourites. We are up against it, but do you know what, every time we have been up against it this season we have gone and competed and made life difficult.
I am not guaranteeing a win, I can't because they have got a really strong side, but I am guaranteeing that we are going to go there and have a right go at them. Whichever system we decide to play we have to go there and make life difficult for them with the players we have got fit and available, which at the minute isn't a great amount.
JP
What is the situation? Anyone likely or potential to be back on that front?
GA
No, there are none of them back, none of them will be back. Danny Livesey might be fit but Danny Livesey won't encourage me to play 4-3-3, 4-5-1 or 4-4-2, he is not going to go upfront and get me three goals in a game I don't think is he?
So if he is fit it is probably taking out the one player that did very, very well in our team, David Raven on Saturday, if I decided to play with Danny Livesey. But that is something we will look at during the week.
JP
What about Richard Keogh on the right wing and Raven at right-back?
GA
Yeah, well that is what you would do isn't it because you don't have to put Richard on the right wing, he makes a clown of himself, and it comes back on you and it makes you look a right idiot. But I do, so I don't think we will be playing Richard up there, God bless him.
JP
Fair point, and you are talking about next season and you are talking about not having a Danny Graham scenario sort of blocking you basically from bringing in players that you need where you need them.
Another key part of this summer for you is going to be getting the players who are within your squad, not just the strengthening of it but making sure that it is as strong as it is now. How far along are you on that one?
GA
We are miles ahead of where we were last year because we know what we have got available to retain the players that we want and we know what we have got available to strengthen and we know where to strengthen as well.
So we are way ahead and that is the encouraging thing, we have actually this season managed to finish around or about the mid-table mark when we had a really tough start to the season in terms of putting the squad together.
You want to try to do it, not being able to buy anybody until the last week of the pre-season campaign, and that is when we got the figure for Danny (Graham), which was horrendous from the (Football) League. That is when we got the figure and that is when we had an idea of what we could and couldn't spend.
Because Southend are going to get relegated because they have overspent and they have over-budgeted and they have run it like a financial shambles. I wasn't allowed to do that here and rightly so, because I don't think anybody wants to see us relegated this season and nobody wanted to see us in administration.
We have avoided both of those, now this season we are on a far better footing, I know what is available, the board have given me the figure. I know who I want to keep, we are working on that and I know who I want to bring on and we are working on that. So I think we are way ahead and next season we should have a squad that can play all those three systems as and when required.
JP
Are you anywhere closer though to anyone in terms of signing who is here at the moment?
GA
I am closer.
JP
Than we when last spoke though, is there any sort of deadline? What is the latest on the players whose contracts do expire very shortly?
GA
It is the same as it was last week, the agents are in charge, you need to speak to the agents. They are the ones who are in charge and all we can do is offer them……., the board have been fantastic, they have offered them fantastic deals to the players that we want to keep, and then there are other players that I need to speak to as well. But the board have offered great deals, the agents take those deals and they farm them off to every single club that they think might be an interest.