In the absence of a home match this week, 1874 Manager Ian Street gives his squad update.
Hi everyone,
I trust and hope everyone has had as good a festive period as possible and I hope you all have a good new year.
We returned to action last week with a hard earned 4-2 victory against fellow high flyers Hanley Town FC, we didn’t do ourselves any favours by going 2-0 down after half an hour or so, I did think their goals came against the run of play but to be fair they were two quality finishes even though we could and should have done more in preventing them.
I did feel that if we could get one back going into the half time break then it would be game on again, fortunately we got both back and the momentum had swung back our way.
The lads at half time in the changing rooms had the belief that they could go on and win it and that is exactly what they did. The pitch at the Barton Stadium isn’t the easiest to play on but I thought we worked the ball well and created some good openings.
I asked a few weeks ago if we could win our next six games, it was a tall order but the lads have so far responded well with four wins and just the unfortunate loss at Nelson, to go 5 out of six with a win at Widnes would be good.
The division is really tight at the top at the moment and with that in mind it really is a case of dealing with each game as it comes along, teams around us will slip up as probably we will but we have to stay focused on the job and make sure it isn’t too costly.
Our preparation for Saturday at Widnes will be good and a light training session at Moss Farm is planned for Friday afternoon to get rid of any excessive food and drink from over the past few days, I would rather find out on Friday who is sluggish rather than on Saturday.
We have and will have a few new faces coming into the squad and I will tell you more about them over the coming weeks.
Due to our lack of fixtures after Saturday I have set up two friendly games on the 4th and the 11th of January, these games will be an opportunity for me to have a look at any new faces and to give a few of the squad much needed match practice and probably it may be the last bit of action in an 1874 shirt for a few as we go into the last few months of the season.
Thanks for your support as always.
Ian.