Winger gives his thoughts on the friendly defeat
Town went down to a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Stourbridge on Monday night, as manager Micky Mellon made a host of changes from the side which won at Solihull on Saturday.Jim O’Brien was of the players to come into the side after he picked up an injury in the win against Birmingham.
Although he was disappointed by the result, he was pleased to get some game time under his belt.
“It was a good run out for everyone that needed minutes,” said Jim
“For myself, I was in survival mode. I hurt my knee the other day and I’ve just come back and I really wanted to play, so for me to get some minutes was really good.
“Overall I think we know it wasn’t good enough, but everyone’s at different stages of preseason so we take the positive, which is fitness.”
After missing a couple of days with injury O’Brien was happy to be back out on the grass, but knows the team can do better.
“I had the weekend off and I was desperate to play tonight just to get some minutes,” the winger said.
“I’m not too far behind. I’ve been wrapped in cotton wool a little bit in preseason, but it’s all geared to the first game of the season so that’s what we’re all looking forward too.”
“I think tonight’s a little bit of a wakeup call in terms of the competitiveness and we need to get that back. It’s not training games, so if we can get that competitiveness back, which I think we did well against Birmingham, if we can get that against Hibs then we will be alright.”
O’Brien joined the club in the summer after being released by Coventry City and he’s enjoying his time in Shropshire.
“It’s nice, it’s a good set up and the lads are spot on. Everything seems to be really well thought out in terms of the session plans and the recovery, there’s a lot of thought goes into things so it’s a good set up and I think we just need to work on a couple of little things.
“We’ve got good players, we’ve got a good squad so I don’t think anyone can really guess what the starting 11 is yet, so that’s obviously healthy for everyone. I’m really enjoying it,” he said.
With just one game left in preseason all eyes are now on the first game of the season against MK Dons and O’Brien is hoping to be included.
“I may need 1 or 2 games to get back up to speed, I’m behind everyone else fitness wise, but I’m looking forward to the start of the season”
“As long as I’m on the park I don’t really care where I play. I know that sounds a bit cliché, but I think most of my best games I played last season came from on the left with Coventry and then at Scunthorpe I played number 10 in a diamond so I’m comfortable wherever,” he said.
O’Brien admitted that he’s been impressed by the squad Micky Mellon has assembled, but has no targets for the season ahead.
“We’ve got a good spine of the team and we’ve got a good group of young lads as well, and we’ve also got good experience,” he said.
“Setting targets isn’t something I like doing. I’ve been there before at Coventry last year, as soon as we started talking about promotion then it blew up, so I’m not one for setting targets or where we can go, but we’ve got a good squad.
“If we can get that competitive edge back in the game against Hibs, that will set us up well for MK Dons.”
O’Brien was captain at Coventry and was asked whether he would be interested in taking the armband this season.
“I don’t really know what’s happening,” O’Brien said.
“Adam (El-Abd) was captain tonight and he is captain material. The gaffers not really thinking too much into, the Kitman’s asked before we came out, so it’s not something that’s really important.
“We’ve got a lot of experience within the team and throughout the squad, so I don’t think it really matters who it is. It’s obviously a nice feeling when you’re captain of your team and if it’s me it’s me, but it’s not something that will get me down.”