Accrington Stanley interim manager John Doolan talks about tomorrow’s Sky Bet League Two game against Bradford City.
The Reds go into the game at Wham Stadium carrying three defeats, but before losing 1-0 to Crawley Town they had only lost twice in East Lancashire in all competitions since the start of December. .
Meanwhile, the Bantams, who achieved their first win under new coach Graham Alexander in a come-from-behind game this season, are unbeaten in their last five league games, conceding just one goal in that span.
This week John:
“I’m really excited to be honest and looking forward to the games this weekend and my focus was on Bradford this week.
“I just can’t wait, I’m really, really excited and I think the players are too.
“I don’t like being in the spotlight. I’ve been there with John[Coleman]and Jimmy[Bell]and what they’ve done for the club and everything else. It speaks volumes.
“People would see me screaming in the dugout, but I’m a rather quiet person, just doing my thing and doing it to the best of my ability. I’m trying to get my job done.
“I know what it means to the fans. I’m a fan of the football club myself so I know what it means to go to a match, what it means to not just the fans but to see the team win. “But for the people who are outside, the people who work around the building, the people who work in the office.
“If we can get some kind of result, it just puts a smile on people’s faces. If we get one point or three points or win a round in the cup, everyone goes home satisfied. I feel satisfied when I do it.”
“We know how everything is going to go, some little things have changed, but nothing dramatic at the moment, it’s business as usual. It hasn’t been a good week, but I’ve been asked to take the reins and I’m going to do the job as best I can.
“It’s business as usual. The players know what they have to do, who they represent and what the badge on their chest means. You’ll understand.”
John about Bradford:
“At the moment they seem to be under the radar because they haven’t played for a while. I know they played on Tuesday and drew with Doncaster, but they’re a good team and they’ve got five clean sheets. Before that, you can tell a lot about the team itself.
“We played them at their place and it wasn’t a big game.
“It was like that, we lost 1-0. It was a kind of route, a flick-on with one ball. The lad finished unbelievable. So we know everything about the player. We know everything about the style of play, the shape of the team, we know we have some players coming back from injury, so we’ve researched everything about them.
“The pressure comes from within and we want to get one or three points, but there is pressure internally.
“There’s pressure on everyone, but it’s how you deal with the pressure.
“We have to try to win games and the way things are at the moment Bradford are one point ahead of us in the league, but if we can get a win and get ahead of them it would be great. Where will it take us?
“We still have 11 games left, so we’re going to try to win as many games as possible.”
John said of his supporters:
“The fans are going to be rooting for us because you know what the Clayton End is like and you know what the fans are like here, which is great.
“They are a big part of it and if they can support the team and support the team like they have, we will go a long way.
“Come and support the team. It’s their team, it’s their club. I want them to get behind the team.
“These guys, whoever comes on Saturday, whoever comes off the bench, I have to root for them and support them because that’s what I’m doing right now and that’s what I want. I want them to be passionate, I want them to get behind the team, take the team forward and hopefully get what they want, which is three points.”
John on injury:
“Sean Walley is back, in that respect you have what you have, maybe you need to put a little bit of a square peg in a round hole, but it gives somebody a chance, it’s either It might be the case,” said the youth team players.
“We had a cup game against Burnley on Tuesday and if you watch them play they were great and they were flying the ball around future Premiership stars so the players did really well. Hooray.
“I have no problem bringing them in because the fans want to see them running around on the pitch, giving 100 percent, and whether they win, lose or draw, they will applaud from the field. .”