 Brought to you by DIS, keeping companies connected with cloud-based solutions. Come on, City! Kenny, good to chat with you. If I can start with injury news, firstly, how's Lee Novak? Well, he's responding to treatment. Obviously disappointed that Lee's one of a number of players that will have doubts about. So hopefully he'll respond to the treatment. I don't actually know exactly how long it will be. I think Saturday may come just a little bit too early for them. But hopefully, as I say, he's going to respond to the treatment and he won't be out for too long, if indeed that be the case. Yeah, Stuart said it could be a lengthy spell at first, but they hadn't maybe fully checked the full extent of the injury. So from what your understanding is, it shouldn't be too long on the sidelines. Yeah, that's what I'm led to believe. I think obviously, when you get the results of these scans, you try and give the player every chance to respond to the treatment. But that's just a gauge that they give you if they think he's going to be out for a certain amount of time. But yeah, we're hopeful, as I say, that Lee's not going to be too bad and hopefully they'll keep the backs in the round later. Curtis Guthrie was another one of your forward line that wasn't in the matchday squad on Tuesday. What's his situation? Very similar actually. He's been for a scan also. It's a type of dead leg that he picked up. And from the Newport game, I think it was. Newport, Walsall game. Hi, it's one of these ones that, you know, I think any injured, we're starting to pick up a fair share of them just now. But I think every club falls into the same bracket. We're having a lot of games, particularly in this month. You know, it's been Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday for the last five or six weeks, as far as I'm concerned, you know, and you will pick up the odd, the odd injury here and there. We certainly have seemed to pick up that, definitely. I'll get your thoughts on that schedule in due course, because I realise it's quite a hectic one at the moment. But just for the sake of clarity, so Curtis will be out this Saturday. I would imagine he'd be struggling, yeah. I don't like rolling players out because I'm a great believer of having a fantastic Friday where they come in and think, oh, yes, I'm going to be OK. And all of a sudden the doom and gloom can be quickly, you know, established that, yeah, well, it's not going to be as bad as we think. So let's hope for a fantastic Friday, shall we? Quite right, indeed. And on that front, are you able to welcome anyone back? Because, of course, Levi, Sutton, Gareth Evans and Zelle Ishmael have been out of action for a little while. And Stuart says to him previously that they could be returning this weekend. Yeah, well, Levi and Gareth both trained today and Zelle did a little bit more with the physios. So he didn't join in the main training. But certainly Levi and Gareth will put themselves forward for Saturday. So that's good news for your point of view. We're delighted to have them back. We'll hopefully get them all back, as I say, sooner rather than later because it would certainly help us. And other than the names that we've mentioned and I realise it's an extensive checklist that we've gone through. There are no other Noxon-niggles to report. No, no. We came out of the ballting game, although disappointed with the result. We don't seem to have picked any more injured these up, which is good news. Yes, definitely. How do you reflect then on Tuesday, Kenny? What have you spoken about since the result? Well, the obvious one is a disappointment that we felt we're controlled and haven't watched the game back again. We controlled long parts of the game. The big problem we had was the goal that we conceded, I think, was avoidable. And certainly the good bits you play, which we did have many on Tuesday night, we had no end product. I think the only save of note that the goalkeeper had to make was the save from Billy Clark's penalty. So that's disappointing and that's something that we certainly need to work on and stop giving away silly goals. I think that puts us up against the black ball, as they say, straight away. And I think if you're contributing to losing soft goals and not contributing at the other end of the pitch, it's got all the ingredients of a negative result. When you talk about the errors leading up to the goal that you conceded on Tuesday, does that come down to concentration maybe? How do you summarise that? Well, you could say, yeah, concentrate. Just bad decision-making, really. I think you get that where players maybe think they should maybe do something that they shouldn't. I would put it down to bad decision-making and the unfortunate thing for particularly the goal on Tuesday is we not only had one chance to clear the danger, but we had another one. And we contributed to our own downfall, I felt, on Tuesday. We gave a team who hadn't won at home all season a little leg up and a bit of positivity for their point. It gave them something to defend because they had had a lot of negative results and I think we made it a little bit too easy for them, but it's gone now. There's nothing we can do about it. So we're just going to make sure that doesn't happen again. Yeah, you did show the response in the second half. The penalty goes in. You're looking at a completely different game. I imagine the main message for your group of players is that you want to focus on that second half performance and harness what momentum you can gain from that. Yeah, definitely. I think second half would be better than we were in the first half. Even the first half, we had opportunities, I felt. As I say, the situation where we're not working the goalkeeper needs to be addressed because I think certainly, particularly with the conditions as they are, you certainly want to work the goalkeeper. A goalkeeper, should I say, who had been under a bit of pressure as well. So again, we made it a little bit easier for them. But as I say, that's gone now, but we've got to be as positive as we can. We go back to the Mansfield game and then a week after, we've got the Newport game. So all in a week, we've had a good positive performance and we've had not such a good one. But that's football, I suppose. You talk about challenging the goalkeeper more. Is that something then, as coach and staff, you're encouraging the players to do somewhat more when they maybe have to have a strike from distance on a few more occasions, just to chance their arm somewhat and try and force a mistake. We saw what happened at Forest Green. Yeah, definitely. Every day in training, we preach to the players about the need to walk the goalkeeper, whether it's a header or a shot from distance. If you walk the goalkeeper and force them to make a save, at least you've got the option to maybe a second phase or someone else tapping the rebound. So if you're blasting it over the bar or putting it wider the goal, you've no comeback then. So I think that's something, again, go back to concentration, making sure the players concentrate on the target. But it's something we've been saying for a very, very long time now and it's something we need to take on board. You mentioned the hectic schedule and I said I'd bring it up. How are you finding that at the moment, finding the abnormality of the season in its current form? And also how fine a balance is it when you're selecting the side that of course you want to try and find consistency in the team and the formation that you're setting up with. But on the same breath, you don't want to put players in perilous positions where they are picking up these soft tissue muscle injuries at the moment. Well, that's something that we take on and I know that Stuart does speak with the medical staff and the sports science. We do have a hell of a lot of games over the last number of weeks. You've got to look at, as you say, what you actually want as a manager or a coaching team, you want to have consistency of selection. That's taken from you by the fact of the amount of games that we're going to have to play. So you've just got to find that and every team is the same because we're all having to play these games that you've got to try and find that balance where a new port on the situation where they're on a consistent one of results and they went with the same team more or less. That's certainly what we would like to try and do, but you're going to pick up injuries with this amount, the volume of the games that's coming up. So again, it's just finding that fine balance between you two. Stuart, after the game on Tuesday, pretty much confirmed that this three at the back four in the midfield and then the one two or the two one, however you want to look at it, seems to be that the setup and the formation that you'll want to try and use moving forward off the back of him saying that you've maybe looked at trying to simplify things a little bit at this moment in time. Would you echo those comments and do you think it's the most productive you've been so far this season when playing that formation? Well, I think with it with the personnel that we had available, you know, we looked at it at the start of the season and we felt it was our, you know, the players that were had at our disposal that was probably the best shape that we'd have. But the thing is when you come up against teams who play with a similar shape or you come up against teams who you may feel might cause you problems with their different shape, there's a lot goes into team selection. And then on top of that, we had the situation where Poddy was out for three games. So that kind of takes away your central one of the back three. So yeah, there's loads and loads of stuff you look at. You would like to try and nail it down yet. We'd love to go back three for the rest of the season, but we know that's maybe not going to be the case, but certainly we'd like to try and put that into the players' minds that the wing backs or full backs or whatever we may play four in midfield or five in midfield. We certainly always like to play with two strikers. So we can have that clarity with the players moving forward. I would think most of the time we'll probably go with a back three. Yeah. And you mentioned that back three just to stay on that point as well. Reece Staunton returned to the matchday squad on Tuesday. Was his lack of inclusion a tactical decision or is he still finding his feet coming back to fitness after a little spell on the sideline with injury? Yeah. He's still finding his feet after his fitness doubts, but he's now back and ready to go. And I think putting Reece on there. He covered us also as Reece can play left wing back, left back. So he's very, very important to us. You know, and getting them back 100% rather than, you know, a 75 or 80% Reece Staunton. It's better to go with Ben who we felt had done okay. And the physicality that Bolton brought to the table was another issue for us, you know. Up next for you, of course, Barrow. Firstly, how do you view them as opponents? Another one of many dangerous opponents that you'll get in league to, you know, probably similar to Harrogate, who they've came up and they'll enjoy their stint in league football coming off the back of their first victory as well, make some dangerous opponents. So certainly we'll have a workout. It's a ground I've never been to. So probably for a number of the players, you know, that we will treat them with the respect that they deserve. They've got players that certainly I'm just going to go and watch a bit now. Stewart's doing that just now, watching clips of their games. But certainly, yeah, they've proven that the National League last year they come up as champions. So really in the same vein and we know what Harrogate did to us. Dangerous opponents and we'll treat with every respect. And from what I've seen of them so far, another side that plays with this three at the back formation. Are we seeing this as more of a normality now in football, do you feel, Kenny? Well, I think there's a lot of teams playing with back threes. You know, I think particularly in league two last year, I think Northampton are a team that came up through the playoffs in the back three, Cheltenham off the top of my head. They're another team that play a back three. So it is a very, very popular system. You can tweak it slightly. Obviously, as I said earlier, if you can go a bit, a midfield four or a midfield five, there's many ways you can play it. But I think even for our point of view is, you know, what we really need to get back to as well is to try and keep clean sheets. We've not had many of them this season. So I think that's the first port to call us to make sure we stop conceding silly goals. But going back to your earlier question, yeah, back threes are very, very popular nowadays. Definitely. Go well Saturday. Thanks for your time. Cheers, Kenny. Thanks very much. Thank you. As you said, there's a very big congestion in the fixture list at the moment. Presumably that makes it harder as well for players that are coming back from injury to get them games where they can get their much friendliest back. Yeah. What you try and replicate on the training ground, you're sometimes forced to take a gamble with players and maybe put them straight back into the starting lineup when they're maybe not that 100%. But we're living in difficult times just now. You know, everything's a bit weird and abnormal with the fact of no crowds and one thing and another, the amount of games that we're playing, we're keeping on with the same thing. But all we are really focused now is to try and keep everyone as fresh as we possibly can, try and keep them as fit and healthy as we can and get our best start on the pitch more times than often. With that picture congestion, the number of games just generally, how do you go about scouting the opposition? And Stuart said before that you're quite often off watching games when you can. He is as well. You obviously use modern technology. How difficult is it this season finding out how the opposition play? Well, to get up close and personal, it's difficult. But we do have a... We've got Martin Drew at the end and we've got another lad that goes and does games for us. You have allowed one person per team to go in and watch any of your next three opponents. So, for example, that's possible to do. But for myself and for Stuart, the only time we can obviously do that is if we've got a free weekend or we've got no game or a midweek game that doesn't coincide with a Bradford City game. So, yeah, as you say, the technology, loads of time on the laptops, looking at teams and formations and highlights and pool games. So that's where you get your... But I feel there's no better place than going direct to a game if you can actually go and see it. You get the whole coverage then, which is what the camera has shown you. I was going to say, we all know, as football fans, watching a game of the telly, you miss a lot that you actually see when you're at the game. You better go and pass it out, definitely, yeah. Well, thanks very much. Kenny, good luck with Saturday. OK, thanks very much. Yes. Any, obviously, you mentioned, sort of, Barra got a bit like Harrogate in a sense of, obviously, just to come up. I mean, that gap between League Two and the Conference or National League is getting smaller and smaller. The teams that come up now tend to be pretty strong, don't they, when they come up? Well, I think history shows that, Simon. You know, I think the teams that come up have had Salford recently as well, you know. But no, we cannot afford to take them, you know, lightly. We will not do that anyway. We've always received Harrogate did to us very, very comfortable. And they're actually enjoying being, you know, from National League to come straight into the EFL. They're embracing it and they're enjoying their adventure, shall we say. And as I say, it's dangerous with the fact that Barra had their first victory on Saturday. Sorry, on Tuesday night. So it makes some difficult opponents, but, you know, we've got to expect that. And they've got also, like newly promoted teams, they've got that winning mentality, haven't they? The group have got used to being successful. So, again, you've got that sort of momentum against you. Yeah, there's no secret from that. You know, there's something that we would certainly like that consistency and getting at that habit of winning games and getting on to a run. That's what we are desperate to try and do. And hopefully, as I say, we can pick start. We can't keep saying the same things. We need to do a talking on the pitch. It's disappointing, you know, going from one extreme to Mansfield to maybe a, I think the Walsall game would probably maybe just shade it. But certainly on Saturday, there's Newport disappointing to lose that one. And then the Boaton game I've already mentioned. So about the players, you know, backing in contention. I mean, we talked about Gareth Evans. I know when Stuart brought him in, he was very excited about getting him in because of what he offers in various positions going forward. I mean, having someone like that available, because he's not really had an opportunity yet, has he, because obviously he enjoyed. Yeah, I think he came off injured at the Harrogate game. I think he came off at half time. Yeah, we're desperate to get, all your good players available and Gareth certainly falls into that category. So it would be nice, you know, to have him and hopefully there's no reaction from his training session today. I know he's desperate to get back playing. He's been very, very frustrated as you would be coming to a new club and being injured. But certainly, yeah, he'd be one that you would certainly get right behind and including straight away. And he's one you can play in various roles as well, which is great. That's another plus from him. I think he can play in a number of positions. He's done that throughout his career and done it very, very effectively. Yeah, fingers crossed, as I say, he'll be available for us for Saturday. Obviously, Lee Novak can say hopefully sooner rather than later, but he does raise the question. I think the biggest concern you talked as a baller than that is where are the goals coming from? I mean, that must be the frustration for you as a coaching star. Both ends of the pitch Simon, to be perfectly honest with you. You know, goals conceded and goals scoring, you know, that seems to be at the moment. But, you know, we created plenty chances just as I said earlier, you know, trying to work the goalkeeper. We need to get back. And I think it's all down to confidence as well. There's no doom and gloom here, but obviously it's certainly disappointed with the results. We need to go on a run. Although it likes a new port and the Cambridges and teams like that, we need to be up there. The only way to do that is scoring goals and winning games and to help you do that, keep the ball out at one end and score plenty at the other. Brought to you by DIS, solutions. Come on, City!