We caught up with the gaffer this week to talk about pre-season and injuries.
He began by saying: “It feels like a long time ago when we started on June 24th, I think it was. There's been a lot of work gone in, a lot of preparation, and I suppose it's a bit like the whole football club at the moment, there's a bit of a rebuild going on, you see all the building going on around the stadium, and there's a rebuild of the squad. We've had five new players in in January, I think it's eight to date going into this weekend, so a big rebuild, but I'm really looking forward to the season and seeing what we can all do.”
United ended pre-season with three wins, two draw and two losses. Paul spoke on his overall happiness with pre-season, saying: “I would say I'm reasonably happy, really happy with the level of work that the players have put in. We've had some off days, I will say that, but I try not to get too screwed up about the results over pre-season, it's more about the first few weeks of it, and more about getting the match minutes in the legs, and the training minutes in the legs, and then you want to try and get a little bit of understanding and relationships, and I suppose we look at the Stockport game, and we can say that we did get that, where I thought there was much improved performance, not so much in the previous two, but I've got to say I've been involved in pre-seasons where we've absolutely smashed teams all over the place in pre-season and been rubbish when we started. I've been in pre-seasons where we've not been able to get results for anything and started the season well, so it's a difficult one to gauge.
“We know we're going into the season with a real big challenge ahead of us, we've probably got the furthest journey we've got to make to start with, we've then got a home derby against Barrow here, we've got another long journey in Milton Keynes to get to, so we know it's going to be tough, but it's a brilliant challenge that we're all looking forward to.”
Goals from Dan Adu-Adjei and Luke Armstrong saw us finish pre-season with a 2-1 win over Stockport, we asked if that was a confidence booster for our season opener, he said:
“It certainly did give everybody a boost to be able to play like that, and it was nice to do it in front of our own fans, because we didn't do that enough last season, so that was good.
"There were a lot of good things from that game, not just the actual fitness levels, but some of the football we played, the organisation defensively, the set plays, that's going to be a big part of this season. So there were areas that we were pleased with, areas that we need to work on, and this week's about hopefully getting the fine-tuning of all those different things.”
Promotion is the clear aim for the Blues this season, we asked Paul how important a good start is: "Well, the whole season's important.
“To be promoted, you have to be consistent over 46 games. We want a good start to give everybody a lift, because there's so many positive things going on that we have to make sure the football's positive as well. So we want to get off to a good start, that's the aim, that's what the players have talked about from day one of pre-season, that's what I've talked about.
“We all know what the remit is, we know what we want to do, what we're expected to do, so we've just got to get out there and get started.”
We got an update on the injuries sustained by Dylan McGeouch and Taylor Charters. With Simpson saying: “Dylan has had a scan. We are looking at probably three to four weeks with that, so that's not good news. He will be out at the weekend.
“Taylor has done a little bit of work this week. We are going to wait and see before the weekend where we get to with that. There are quite a few little niggles if I am going to be really honest with you. We may have to call upon a couple of the third-year scholars to come into it.
“We are still trying to bring players into the football club for the weekend who, if we can get them, will come straight into the squad for Saturday because we need to get them. We are picking up a few injuries that are a little bit disappointing and we have got to make sure we keep everybody available as much as we possibly can.
Finishing with everyone’s favourite topic, we asked the gaffer if we were close with any new signings, to which he said:
“I can't say at the moment we are close, but we are making some strong enquiries.
"We are speaking to people. If I am honest, I want a minimum of one in by the weekend, but I can't make any promises because I just don't know. If we don't get them, we will continue to work to try and get the right players in, but we will wait and see come the weekend.”
