Transfer activity surrounding Aaron Hayden and a late switch required when Zach Clough complained of a tight hamstring was a less than perfect build-up to kick off for the Blues against Colchester but, as assistant boss Gav Skelton said at his Monday press conference, ‘that’s football for you’.
"Aaron is a good character and he had a lot of respect in the dressing room, he was a big voice,” he told us. “The lads obviously had the game to focus on so we didn’t dwell on it too much, we moved on.
“That’s how football goes. It moves on quickly, it’s a talking point for a little bit but people quickly move on. The focus from the players was brilliant, we addressed it on Friday, but it wasn’t really mentioned after that, they just got on with it.
“We’re obviously disappointed that he’s left but these things happen and we wish him all the best. We adapt and deal with it, and we don’t really talk about it too much because we have our own jobs to focus on now.
“He’s moved on, but we have a good squad and we cope. If you look at Corey, he was excellent in that position, and we had Morgan Feeney on the bench. We’re already covered in that area so we move on and focus on ourselves.”
And on striker Zach Clough, he commented: “We’ll obviously have a look at him and see how he is. Tuesday will probably be too early for him but hopefully he’ll be back involved on Saturday.
“He’s felt it a little bit in the last week or so but hoped he could get through it on Saturday. It didn’t feel right during the warm-up so he made the correct decision and it was a simple replacement to sort things out.
“He’s got quality and he’ll be a big player for us, so we didn’t want him to play 60 minutes on Saturday then be missing for the next six weeks. We need him to be right.
“Everybody else is fine, other than Danny Devine who is working hard and possibly still a couple of weeks away, so we’re in a good place, touch wood.”