Manager Brian Barry-Murphy looks ahead to Saturday’s League One fixture against Accrington Stanley at the Wham Stadium…
Dale head into the match on the back of last weekend’s win over Fleetwood Town and the Boss says the staff and players very much stuck to task this week, in preparation for the game.
“We’ve been pretty good emotionally in terms of maintaining a good, calm head, in spite of some difficult results where we felt we deserved more, so that has very much been the mantra this week. We wanted to continue in the way we work and the way want to train and play, with a real focus on just improving gradually,” said BBM.
“The next step in that is going to play an outstanding team in Accrington, who we have a huge amount of respect for. We remain very focused on improving every aspect of our game and physically you can see that we’re improving and getting a lot fitter as the weeks progress. I think the quality of our football is starting to show that as well, so I’m very happy where we are.
“The squad is getting stronger in terms of getting players back healthy and fit - although I don’t want to be too quick in saying that in case there’s another one round the corner – but I’m feeling very, very good as we approach what is going to be a very, very difficult game.”
He continued: “I’ve spoken previously about my respect and admiration for John Coleman and what he has done at Accrington.
“Personally and collectively we’ve taken a lot from them over the last couple of years, probably never more so than this year, because we’re in a similar category of what we can do in terms of squad requirements and outlay on players. We’re in a similar category there and maybe separately from League One in terms of what we can’t do.
“But Accrington have proved what they can do over the last couple of seasons with some incredible performances and results in terms of where they finished. That has provided us with great hope for this season and what we can do.”
Watch the full interview on iFollow.