 Brought to you by DIS, keeping companies connected with cloud-based solutions. Come on, City! Connor, good to chat with you again. A disappointing night for your side on Tuesday. What was the most disappointing factor of it from your view? I think it was the way we started the game. Obviously conceding so early. You're chasing the game so that was the most disappointing part that we was probably a little bit naive in early moments and which led to us chasing a goal. They were set up on the counter and it causes your problems when you are chasing a goal. So that was a disappointing start. Mark said that in a bid to try and be more expansive, particularly in those opening stages, that left gap is opening in the defence. What were you trying to achieve with your game plan ahead of the early goal? I think longer term, we felt that defensively. We were at a level where we were having success and our thoughts were how are we going to become better as a team, not only short term but long term. By us asking different things from different people, we felt we would create more chances. We probably did on the night than we've created in past weeks. So it's something that maybe didn't work on the night but we're trying to develop as a team and that's what we spoke about a lot. Is that a case any of you wanting to be more offensive? You've always been a side that's been built on defensive resilience, particularly in the early stages of your charge but is this you now trying to be more expansive, more attacking in the way that you set up? I think it's balance. Obviously from what you've seen, we were vulnerable, not all the time but the counter attack. We had to defend big spaces which does hurt you so I think what we've got to do is keep improving with the ball in possession without affecting the out possession so we've got to find different ways and identify these areas to improve. How disciplined do you have to be with yourself when it maybe didn't quite go your way on Tuesday that you're not to rip up the scrapbook, not start again but stick with what you know and stick to what you're trying to achieve? Yeah, obviously when you start the game some points. It's really difficult because it's quite kind of negative, really negative vibe from the start where you go in excited to make things happen and so early on you get that knock back and it's like oh, we couldn't have started any worse really but again, what we've got to do is make sure that we're as good as we can be and these things happen and I'm sure the experience from going through it with me and Mark will help the players understand of how we bounce back and what we do when we may be conceded earlier. I know there's been a lot of talk about the formation and the outside noise for the one to the better phrase maybe asking as to why that formation hasn't changed. Do you buy into that at all? Do you see yourself playing in a different style, different system? I think we change system on the night. We're quite flexible in terms of the midfield of when we have one sitter or two sitters you probably see it from watching the games and we are quite different in the way that we play against certain formations. You'll see different things if you're looking at the detail in and out of possession. For us, we feel that we try different things within a formation but there's a lot of fluidity and lots of different movements which put you into different shapes, etc. I think over the long term we will start to learn more of what this team is and I think it's okay having a philosophy but you've got to fit it with the team and the players that you've got. I think for us we need to keep delving in and finding out new formations on the way but it might just mean that we have more training time and contact time with the players to work on these things. The worst thing we can do is start changing formations. We're not able to work on it and there's lots of frailties and you're coming away from a team that's been on loads of runs and been performing well so it's catch 22 with that and you've got to not make panic decisions you've got to stick to what you're believing and if changing formations later down the line because we feel it's right and we have a chance to work on it then we're more than happy to do it if it's going to be the right decision. Can you understand why fans maybe think that way though that they may want to see a change in formation and system and the big one being two up top Andy Cook and Danny Rowe playing alongside one another? Yeah, I can understand it. They've got their opinions, they want to see loads of goals and et cetera and you've got two players there who would potentially suit it in a 4-4-2 it's sometimes the pros and cons to anything you're going to have lots of cons of putting two players up there and we've probably trialled it a little bit against Carlisle and the second half and when it's not worked on there's going to be problems which we all saw so I think that's the key time to develop, time to improve and potentially time to change but the fans are fantastic they support us and they've got to keep trying to encourage the players to be even better and we need to just keep working hard. Obviously Colchester next for you you're very well aware of the winless run that you're on does that then come with some degree of pressure on yourselves that you need to get a result indeed a win to end this run? Yes it's like anything, five games is not good enough and not what we want we've been on the other end of the spectrum and now we find ourselves at the bottom end which we've got to just be clearing in what we believe in and what we think it's going to get us out of this little rut that we have and what we'll see is potentially we've come aware a little bit of our fight and desire and that'll be said to the guys of first and foremost play for Bradford City you're going out there, you're giving everything you're aggressive, you're on the front foot and in the in possession stuff will come naturally because we've got good footballers but first and foremost who's going to work the hardest if you work hard you'll play and that's as simple as it is. How are those conversations taking place how are they going? Anthony Conn has just spoken to us and said himself that the players discussed about not letting this season fizzle out Yeah 100% you know it's in football it's quite strange how do you want to finish the season do you want to be happy on a Tuesday on a Saturday or do you want to be miserable and that's the choice that you have to to make as individuals we all want to be successful but we want to make sure that everyone's willing to do everything that they can to put themselves under pressure to perform at the highest level and it's not easy so that's the skill How do you call Chester's opponents? Yeah they're good we've seen bits of them played a few different formations in the last couple of games so a lot of the stuff we're prepping at the minute is to make sure we know as much as we can about what they're going to do on the night Team news wise, I know you were hopeful of Billy Clark on Tuesday is he close or is he a possibility now? He's closer he's been out on the grass today so good signs he's been on the grass all week but it's just one of them things hopefully he is where we want him back but I don't know whether it might be just a little bit too early with in mind the next game after that How's Lee Know about getting on? Good, he was on the grass today so positive news obviously a really good person and great for the guys around the building to see the smile that he had when he was on the pitch today With him being back on the grass does that afford you the opportunity to give yourself a time scale? It'd be wrong to just because I think you've seen from other players in the squad and what has happened potentially with setbacks so we don't want to comment too early really I think one of those would be fair to say in Reece Staunton how is Reece as well? Again looking at the specialist to see what's next for him I wanted to ask you about Portia O'Connor in particular and just his discipline of late I think I'm right in saying it's six yellow cards in his last eight games which takes him to nine in total for the season one more and he's got a two match suspension Is that something that you've been monitoring and indeed have you ever chatted with him about maybe just calming himself down somewhat? We're obviously aware of the situation you can see we can see Portia he's very aggressive he's very passionate and the way he describes it I can relate to this if you want to be performing at your highest level you have to feel that way you have to have that real drive and that real between your teeth really and he plays like that all the time he probably feels that he doesn't play his best games when he's maybe being asked to be a little bit more laid back and it's maybe it lets the centre forward get on the ball a little bit too much so it's the quality of trying to speak to him around his discipline but also to understand that we don't want to take away the good parts of his game but he's not getting booked on purpose that's the truth I guess that's the task is about how he channels that emotion Yeah, definitely it's that controlled aggression is the most important important bit I think Portia's going to do everything that he can to be as aggressive as he can but to sort of be on the line and I think a few of where we're asking the centre house to be aggressive when the nine goes deeper and they get themselves in situations where potentially if they do get turned you can be vulnerable so sometimes they make fouls again Portia's needs to sort of control it at times a little bit better but we don't want to take that away from his game Do you think the role as captain has played a part in that at all and then obviously the hand-band going back to riches No, Portia's Portia just gets on with it he's a great character he's not one for prayers I don't need that, I'm just playing that's all I need, just play a game so he's not being affected We learnt after Tuesday's game that Finn Cousin Dawson had headed to the Northern Ireland international setup for a period of time how big a moment is that for him and indeed for you guys as coaches as well because you've been a big part in his rise to where he is now Yeah, obviously as a club we were all delighted to hear about that Finn was going away basically from international duty he's such a good character and he's one that you can honestly say that he puts everything into being the best Finn that he can be which is so pleasing when you see people get rewarded for their hard work he's been fantastic for us in the time that he's played he had a dip we pulled him out he's not changed in terms of his communication which was a real tick for us because we're saying he's mentally very strong he wants to prove people to people that he is good enough and we're delighted to get him back yeah, so it's been it's been great for him Have you seen him since the news came through and if so, what's he been like around the changing room? No, he's not got back yet so I think he's still over there now or just arriving so we're hoping to see to see the Finn back to himself tomorrow again he's probably been worked hard away but I'm sure he's impressed people and finally, and forgive me if this comes across as a little self-indulgent but we have got the fans for him this evening and it is an opportunity for you guys so I suppose connect with the fans once more and I realise that's something that you've not really had the opportunity to be able to do since you've come into charge so what's your plan, Mark? Yeah, I think if the fans can start to understand you as a person and we're not just normal people we try and do the best job that we can I think the fans are great at this club and we're just hoping that they can get back soon to cheer the guys on and I think if they understand our stories so that we're working as hard as we can to be successful I think that's really important I think we spoke about in the past around this is not going to be you go from 22nd in the league, near the bottom you're going to be champions there's going to be real tough parts that we need to all stick together and get through and we find ourselves in a minute dip at the minute but it's like any team throughout the football league there's moments like this all the time and you're probably seeing that in the last two games that we played we've played teams who have not won in seven or eight so it's not unusual but again it's going to be great to speak to them and to hear their thoughts We'll go well Saturday colour, cheers Cheers Jimmy, thank you Hello Hi Pete How useful is it for you as former youth team coaches that you appreciate that young players will have a dip and it's about when to drop them out of the site and they don't lose their confidence and when to support them through playing to it Yes I think throughout their development because the pressure isn't as high as it is at first team level they've potentially gone through it so maybe when Finn's been under 16 at this club under 18 at this club in times where he's not played and maybe coming up to being a first team player now he's already been putting those situations and sort of learn how to deal with and the emotional side of not being picked but again the biggest thing is that he's not sort of salt or anything like that he's just been working hard And you mentioned before about the difficulty of actually getting the time with the players to work with them essentially and also because the number of long journeys you've had to away-gauge which takes another day out training I suppose How frustrating has that been have you had to change the way you communicate match details to players What it does it means you can't really train much it's basically a lot of analysis stuff and walk-throughs which is tough because you want them to replicate the game when you're doing those things where people are sprinting and people are getting up to match speeds and match intensity and at the moment we unfortunately can't do that because of the high risk of putting too much through the players at this moment in time so it's frustrating but there's no excuses because we just need to find clever ways and solutions to win games As you say you don't want to put too much through the players the medical staff and the sports scientists have been even more important this season Yeah vital and I said it in the last preview and it was around you know nobody's ever had a season like this so people from all clubs are finding new things out and probably making mistakes you know clubs are going to make mistakes because of the high load and the stress that's on the body but we've got to make sure that we listen to the specialists and on the medical side we heard this morning that there might be a saliva test now for concussion that's got to be good news with all the reports we've had of how that's affected players in the past Yeah I wasn't aware that's obviously fantastic news you know probably it's kind of a breakthrough moment I guess and you're sort of then knowing you know when play does go down with a head injury you know if there's that test that can you know determine whether they have concussion and that's obviously going to save lives and going to help people in the future so I think that's amazing Good, thanks very much Good luck on Saturday Thank you very much Pete Hi I'm just here from the team here Obviously like I said one thing I'm sure I mentioned it a bit on Monday you're really crying yourself on that defence now well it's done since you two rins like your clean sheets but it looked a little bit it strolled a little bit obviously on Tuesday were you disappointed in particularly how much Richard had worked or was it just the case of as Anthony mentioned you were going forward so much trying to get those goals and you were a bit open at the back towards the end because Richard stopped again a lot of words at the end of the last half hour I think yeah I think it was a game that you know it was there was numerous chances for both sides I think we looked more vulnerable because obviously we were 1-0 down so early on and you know we want to win games and we're going to take the game to the opposition if we're 1-0 down it would be wrong for us to stay in our shape you know I expect pressure from the opponent so we wanted to go forward a little bit more put them under pressure which does make you vulnerable at times and that happened and yes Richard worked a lot more than he has been in the past three months a lot more but I think that comes from again the attacking shape and potentially their threats because they were you know Issa and Loft on the counter were quick and direct and you know they caused us problems we have to stop the counter better we have to be looking at the player better to determine whether people look like they're going to lose possession and get themselves into better positions earlier on to stop the counter altogether but you know we just want to get back to how we were no definitely and obviously there was quite a lot of long balls that didn't really go anywhere when you got the ball out wide all he put in a couple of great crosses second half is that something to look at making sure those crosses that's long balls are more they've got more purpose there's someone to aim for rather than those balls being pulled up and sort of going out and playing being more about the defenders balls in that are going to have a real impact scoring chances because some of all these crosses second half Rex had nailed a couple of goals in there yeah all these crosses you know are very good and he's created something in the last game he put eight in which shows you that he's getting himself into positions where you know he's either taking on his full back or he's getting a yard to deliver I think what you see from us is we try and mix it up in terms of getting the plays to make good decisions on when to play long and when to play short and I think chasing the game we felt that by crowding out certain areas and the players crowding out certain areas there was more chance of winning the second balls to play from there but I think we had more than enough chances and good chances to score goals on the night which was obviously really frustrating no definitely and for you guys there is that frustration obviously it's been five games is there a feeling that the longer a win this run goes on it's harder to get out of or do you feel like one more than one game could you sort of change everything and get you back back sort of on two feet it's tough because you're trying to reset every week if you have a bad week in terms of not winning the game you're looking to reset you can't let it take over your life and make your panic and make bad decisions and to be too emotional about it you've got to keep focused and make sure that you keep understanding the process that it's going to be we need to work hard to find what we need to work on and the areas to improve and our job is to work even harder to make sure we're the best team we can be no definitely you'll know you and Mark you're being around the game long enough do you think fans have just got to sort of take stock and think that the process obviously worked up until Newport it was ten wins, four draws, one defeat under you two, yeah it's been a bad run but do you think it's one of them where it's like look come on we won ten games out we can still do it don't lose faith in us almost it's hard to comment on anything that people say all we can do is to make sure we prepare as well as we can for every game and I think we've said it from the start it's going to be tough and it's not going to all be nice and fairytale it's going to be dips along the way so we've just got to focus even more and keep working hard and that's the simple answer to that that's fair enough and obviously we've coached us through on Saturday I mentioned a bit to Antony Colin Harnley won their biggest threat but he's pretty much certain to miss the game they've tried a few different things obviously with the limited prep time does that make it even more difficult knowing that you're not entirely sure what they're going to go with in terms of their setup yeah you go into every game really where there's different players can play in different positions for the opposition and we're trying to see who we think is going to play and things like this do maybe make us think differently definitely and just finally for me we mentioned it a bit I've got a bad run playing you so it's kind of stunning obviously Colchester are on a really bad run once in 2021 and again he's keeping the players mindful that look just because they're on a bad run you've got plenty to sort of do you with almost it's not something that we mention in terms of we don't mention that they've not won for a certain amount of time we go with our game plan we go to win the game we don't want to get ourselves in any sort of mind games or anything like that with the players we go out there to perform and the way it's been for the last few weeks it's not been good enough we make sure that we put on a good performance and get a good result brought to you by DIS keeping companies connected with cloud based solutions come on city