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" The week has been pretty busy for us to pass the time away but now we've got to make sure that we concentrate on Southend because that is a really tough fixture. We are going to get tested week-in and week-out now for the next four or five weeks definitely. This weekend is a tough fixture, they are a good side in good form but I'm sure that they will be saying the same about us. They will be having little looks at us and will be concerning themselves about some of our players so there is a terrific game in prospect.
" It certainly becomes to the players a little bit like a game of chess, there will be a sort of face-to-face competition. You'll probably put your players up shape-wise against their players and see who can come out on top. Probably rather than a game of chess it's a battle of wits a wee bit, and a bit of determination in seeing who is the best one.
" Then at the top of that comes the ability to decide, if you can get enough of the ball, and I know it's a simplistic view this, but the side with enough of the ball is likely to give problems to the other team. If we can get enough of it at Southend then we'll give them problems, if they get it then we'll have some problems to deal with. So it's going to be very difficult getting hold of that ball in the first place and I think that is where the competition starts.
" I think you've got to be able to tweak your system here and there and maybe during a game sometimes. I'll take you back to the Chester cup tie here when we played quite open against them and they had a good spell on the ball, scored a goal and gave us big problems. We had to adjust our team to stop them getting there and we managed to do that. We pushed Jeff Smith a little bit narrower and picked up a player. It was only a minor detail in a sense but it made a big difference to the result of the game probably.
" Then we came on Saturday against Gillingham and said that we wanted to play our 4-4-2, we like that, they changed their shape and went with a three and a holding midfield player. All these very technical things and we managed to win the game, we stood by our standards or by what we wanted to do. Each game I think you will look at it slightly differently, and even during a game if we are tactically aware on the bench, and hopefully we are, then we can adjust to either stop the opponents or create problems for them.
" People told me we could go top of the league a week or two ago at Yeovil and we didn't quite make it. You know my answer to that one, you know what I am going to say. We've got a relatively small squad of players that need to stay fit for us to stay around the top part of the table. At the moment, touch wood, we are not too bad and these next few games are going to test that squad to the full so we'll see where we are in the next five or six weeks. If we are still around there then maybe I'll get a wee bit closer to answering that kind of question from you. "