Rochdale Assistant Manager Dave Flitcroft spoke to the club's website ahead of Saturday's game against rivals Bury about preparing the players, recent result and the signing of Matt Flynn.
With Dale having lost their previous two matches, Dave knows how important it is to get back to winning ways in the right manner and tells us what it takes to get back to those winning ways.
"We've been saying all week that what it needs is a little bit of fine tuning," said Flitcroft. "We need to cut out the individual errors we've been making. What we do know is that these players are giving 100% for the cause, in training and on matchday. There has been some modifications to our training programme, but the players are still excelling in everything we ask them to do. Nothing gets us more excited than coming into training every morning and being able to work with these players."
It is important that the players are motivated for each and every game. Sometimes it is up to the Flitcroft and Hill to motivate the players, but the Bury game requires no motivation techniques from the management team.
"Self-motivation is the key really. The players know what is at stake every day in order to reach the end goal. We ask them to be motivated when they come in and to be totally in control when they leave the dressing room at five to three. We want them to feel a little of bit of tenseness and a little bit of excitement before a game in order for them to be in control of all their emotions."
Whilst the performances from Dale have been promising and solid, they haven't quite yielded the results wanted. Does this bring about frustration for the management team?
"The performances up to now have been good. They've been full of endeavour and full of good decision making. Once our fine tuning has taken place people start flowing into the season. It's important now that the decent football we are playing is turned into chances that are taken. Frustration does build, because you've got 95 minutes to win a game and when that doesn't happen it can be frustrating from the sidelines. It's important that we deal with frustration by being pro-active in what we do, acting on things before they happen. What you don't want to do is let the frustration creep out onto the field. It's an individual thing really. Chris Dagnall has been ridiculously outstanding. He can't dwell on chances he misses like he did against Cheltenham, because he will ruminate on that. There are definitely goals in this time and once it's fine-tuned I don't think we'll have a problem."
On Thursday Dale announced the permanent signing of Matt Flynn from Rochdale. Flictcroft gave us his thoughts on Flynn and any potential new signings that could be making their way to Spotland in the near future.
"We've been scouring the local teams and local talent to see who is perhaps hiding in reserve teams. We've got a strong network of people now, which allows us to look a lot more players that are under the radar. We found Matt Flynn in the reserves at Macclesfield. He has a lot of qualities, but his biggest quality is that he wants to learn in this environment. We really excited by Matty's potential and something we are working on is getting a layering system in place for if players do leave."
Subscribers to Dale Player heard this interview first and in full, as Flitcroft went on to talk more in depth about the Bury game and the backing he and Keith Hill receive from the board. Click here for full details on Dale Player.
