Gaffer's thoughts after the pre-season win over Solihull Moors
Town continued their pre-season game programme with a comfortable 4-0 win away to Solihull Moors.It was a strong side that started the game with all four goals coming from the first XI who played for the first 60 minutes of the game. On the hour mark Town changed the whole team with a separate eleven players seeing out the rest of the game.
After the game manager Micky Mellon spoke to the press to give his thoughts on the afternoons work.
“We came here to move forward with fitness and to get another game together”, said Micky.
“We've managed to score some great goals and hopefully get everyone through the game without picking up any injuries.
“Overall it's been a pleasing afternoon for us.”
The aim of pre-season is to get the players minutes on the pitch and over the 90 minutes Town used twenty two players. It was a good workout for the squad in some tricky conditions on a warm afternoon.
“Different things can affect the game, the weather is not good and the pitch is sticky, conditions I know we have to adapt for, but it doesn't make for a good game at times.
“All the lads should take great credit as it was a terrific performance overall.
“It was a very professional performance where we worked very hard with and without the ball.
“When we lost the ball we worked quickly to get it back and the game will have been good for the fitness.
“We will now move into next week and have another tough week of training.
“Solihull tried to play the game correctly and represent their manager well so a lot of credit must go to them.
“I'm pleased that the fans who have given up their time and money to come and watch us have seem some good goals.
“We don't get carried away with the result and move onto Monday's game at Stourbridge and another good game.”
There were two names missing from the squad with Ian Black and Jim O'Brien missing from the game with injuries.
“Jim's picked up a little knock but I'm expecting him to be back in training next week”, confirmed Micky.
“Blackie has now got a bit of bone bruising so as soon as that comes out he should be able to get going again.
“Other that that we are looking pretty good on the injury front.”
The focus now switches to the Monday night trip to take on Stourport at their stadium. Another game that will give Town a good test and the gaffer is expecting a different starting line-up on the night.
“We will try and build the minutes up for the players because the important things is to get those minutes out on the pitch.
“The ones who need minutes we will look to get them more minutes because we are trying to get everybody as fit as we can.
“It won't be many of those who started the game more likely to be the ones who got the last half hour.
“We'd hope to get them up to an hour or 75 minutes of game time to get them match fit.”
There were a number of the Town youngsters included in the Town team with John McAtee getting a run out and Chris Gallagher travelling with the squad and being named on the bench.
“John deserved his chance, we've watched him through his first year with us and now he's moved into the second year and he's done terrific”, said Micky.
“We've brought three of the youngsters here today and they all deserved to be here today because of the levels of performance they have been showing in training.
“We will try to keep progressing them as much as we can because we rely on youth here and it's something we will continue to do.”