United’s season continues to roll on tomorrow as the Blues head to Boundary Park for their Carabao Cup first round meeting with Oldham, and boss Chris Beech spoke to us about what he expects to be another good game.
"We went for it on Tuesday night, with what was available to us, and we’ll be the same again on Saturday. Hopefully we’ll have a few more numbers available, and we want to try and go and win that game, of course we do.
“After full time in midweek we told the players that they needed to go home and rest up, make sure they eat well, sleep well, and let’s hope we can get a couple of players out of the treatment room and we’ll see what tomorrow brings.”
“It’ll be a different type of game,” he continued. “They’ve got a new team and a new manager. It’s another cup competition that we want to do well in, so we’ll make sure we’re ready for that.
“The thing is that everybody is just really excited about being back at it and involved again. That’s why I’ve still got to put the handbrake on me.
“I don’t want to let that excitement put at risk something when we can’t have certain players available. Looking at the league fixtures, we’ve got three games this month in the league and then seven next month.
“I’ve got to make sure that as much as I want these lads on the pitch, and they want to be on, I can’t control the type of injury we had with JJ Kayode or Omari Patrick. We try to protect, I just have to try my best.
“Sometimes you set off on a journey and you get a puncture in your car, who knows why it happens when it does. We’ve had a little bit of that this week and hopefully it won’t be next week. Players missing gives others opportunities, and that’s why we had Lewis Bell involved with us, simply because of how well he’s trained recently with the first team.”
With spirits high around the group as new faces settle in the gaffer also spoke the need to keep a check on the players as their enthusiasm for getting on with it continues to bubble just under the surface.
“We had eight players making their debut for us on Tuesday and you’ve got to be mindful of the opponent we were playing,” he said. “They were one game away from receiving £9 million from the EFL if they’d got promoted to the Championship, so we can’t forget that.
“The intensity and commitment in training is excellent to see, but I’m having to curtail a lot of it because the lads are going at full throttle. They’ve been so competitive, and I’ve had to look at it because they’ve been hot and there’s a real will to win in there. That’s what we want to see and hopefully we’ll be able to harness it.”
The new Covid-19 restrictions made it an interesting challenge for the club to get the game on, with everything from players getting changed to how the dugouts were configured affected.
“It’ll be interesting to see how all of that is done at Oldham, but whatever it’s like we’ll just have to get on with it,” he explained. “As a club we did really well to get our game on, it’s amazing, really.
“For us, the eleven starters changed in the changing rooms, the substitutes changed in the players’ bar, you’ve got to see the referee outside to change team sheets, then you’ve got to consider where you’re going to come back with the information on Fleetwood’s team - where do you talk to the players? How can you get them together?
“It’s everything you don’t really want to think about, and that’s just me, never mind Nigel and the office staff, and everybody around the ground. It was a magnificent effort.
“It’s probably better, easier, when you go away. We just get told where we can go and we do what we have to do.”
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