Town boss, Steve Cotterill, spoke to the media after yesterday's draw with Championship side Cardiff City.
Town held Cardiff City to a 0-0 draw at Montgomery Waters Meadow on Tuesday night and the manager said he was pleased with how the game played out.
Cotterill discussed the game, the tough conditions, the progress his side has made throughout pre-season, and the three missing players from yesterday’s game.
On the game:
“A good workout and a good game. When they can change the number of bodies that they can change on that 60-minute mark and put out another team they can really damage you. I thought our boys stood up to it really well. It was always going to be one of those games where perhaps if we scored, we needed to score early in the game because I think that once they bring on a new team, they’re going to get stronger and have a bit more zip about them.”
On the conditions:
“I thought it was a really good workout for our boys so I’m very pleased. I suppose we shouldn’t moan about it (the conditions) too much because we’ve got fit young men who can run around and the weather we get in our country probably, we shouldn’t complain about a bit of sunshine. Hopefully, everybody around the country has kept safe because it was a difficult day.”
On the progress his side is making:
“We’ve had a few good moments in the Burnley game and a few good moments against Cardiff and we’re much further on from where we were for the Telford game which was only a week ago. We’ve just had three games crammed into that week as well which you don’t always get in pre-season but I wanted to put them under stress and duress which is why we put those friendlies in where it was tight. They’ve had a really tough week. It’s not just the games but there’s training on top of that and yeah, we’re pleased with where they’re at.”
On Elliott Bennett, Dan Udoh, and Aiden O’Brien:
“He [Elliott Bennett] had his operation and he’ll be on crutches for the next two weeks so we won’t be seeing him yet but the operation went well. The worst part about it is that we could’ve done it at the end of the season but specialists didn’t want to do it. We’ve now had to go through a process and there’s no blame attached to anyone here but now hopefully he’ll be out of the other end and he could be back quite quickly at the end of that two weeks.
“Daniel Udoh had a little bit of an ankle problem throughout pre-season. We had it scanned and it just shows up a little bit of tendinopathy around his ankle but nothing else. He’s had it injected and rescanned and it’s nothing major but enough to mean we don’t need to play him. He can carry on training and he’s got an appointment to see another specialist next Wednesday.
“On Aiden [O’Brien], he got scanned because we thought he had a hernia – he didn’t – but there was something with his hip flexor. Nothing needs doing but he’s got to settle down and hopefully, he’ll be okay and we can resume training with him.”
