Manager Dave Challinor believes his side are ‘not too far away’ at the minute despite our slow start to the campaign, as we go in search of a first win of the season against Barrow.
In his latest pre-match interview, the gaffer highlighted County’s missed opportunities in recent games as being our obvious downfall, but emphasised the importance of focusing on the positives in terms of performance, with a long way still to go in the season.
“I truly believe, and there’ll be stats and data to back me up, that we’re not too far away. We’re missing opportunities, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to work that out, and goals change games, the timing of those goals change games.
When things aren’t going your way, decisions tend not to go in your favour – you can either look at it in a really negative, pessimistic way and say ‘woe is us’, or you can crack on. We’re three league games in. We should have more points on the board. We haven’t. You either crack on and move forward, or make an excuse and sulk about what’s happened previously.”
Dave also confirmed that midfielder Ryan Croasdale is available for selection again, having come off the bench in Tuesday night’s draw with Bradford City. Antoni Sarcevic and Nick Powell both missed that game, with the County boss stating they will also be unavailable for Saturday’s game as they recover from minor injuries, but will hopefully return in time for our trip to Mansfield next week.
Barrow come to Edgeley Park on the back of two wins and a draw so far, and DC is expecting another tough challenge against a side that completed the league double over County last season.
“They’re difficult to play against, as was shown last year for us. The strength of them is the team, and the togetherness. They’re gritty, do the basics well, and from our perspective we’ve got to concentrate on us.
We’ve got to make sure we’re secure in terms of what we do, we obviously want to be progressive and on the front foot and that’s not going to change, but we have to make sure we don’t leave ourselves open to counter-attacks and give opportunities away like we did in the games last season.”
You can watch the manager’s full pre-match interview here, including more on injuries, transfer activities and tactics heading into the weekend:
