Port Vale reporter Mike Stubbs sat down with Vale Manager Andy Crosby as the Valiants geared up for their trip to top of the table Oxford United this forthcoming Saturday.
MS Andy, today’s the last day of August. How would you sort the first month of the season? The first seven games?
AC It was a big dip at the start, wasn’t it? Listen, I think again it comes back to what I was saying before about myself. Personally, I’m trying to retain that consistency in what I what I do, how I behave amongst the group.
And I think if you do that, you give yourself a better chance rather than the emotional highs and lows etc of sometimes what winning and losing does to you. You probably have a a five minute window after a game where you’ve won a game and then it’s all about the next game.
So it it seems to have stood myself personally in good stead over the years that that that’s the personality I’ve got. So, yeah, you have a brief moment of enjoying it, and you think about the reasons we’ve won.
And then it’s the next game, so that’s where we’re looking at it, a month of the season gone, and that’s it.
MS Oxford’s the third game of five in fifteen days for you, just how difficult is it to keep that squad fit and rotating and also keep up the performances?
AC I think if you looked at our preseason, you have seen a group of players who are extremely fit. We’ve made changes in every game, we freshen things up, we’ve rotated players. We’ll continue to do that.
We look at the opposition’s strengths and weaknesses and how we have to try and combat their strengths, but also exploit their weaknesses.
So listen all all our players need to be ready, they need to be fit, they need to be fresh. They need to be tactically prepared and ready to to play, play the game, impact the game or just support one of the teammates.
MS And this coming Saturday, obviously Goodrham and Harris are obviously the key goal threats for Oxford, but is there anything else that, Vale can do as a squad to to limit the chances?
AC so we’ve been looking at Oxford, throughout the week and they’ve obviously got strengths within their group, and it’s something that we have to be mindful of.
They’ve got real strengths on the front line. A real good pace, a good transition team. Technical players in the on the on the front line. So, yeah, we’ve got to be ready to try and combat that.
