Blues Host Fleetwood Aiming to Build on Pompey Thrashing Saturday, 23rd Oct 2021 12:26 The Blues host Fleetwood Town at Portman Road on Saturday afternoon looking to build on their impressive 4-0 win at Portsmouth on Tuesday. Town’s victory at Fratton Park was their fifth win in their last eight games in all competitions and their third on the road this season. At home, Town are unbeaten in three having defeated Shrewsbury 2-1 in their last Portman Road outing, while table-proppers Doncaster were hammered 6-0 prior to that. The Blues are up to 13th in the League One table, five points from the play-offs having lost only once in their last seven League One games. But despite their improved form, they are still to win back-to-back games in the league this season, something Cook will hope to put right against the Cod Army. “You guys haven’t got any positivity in you!” Cook joked when the lack of back-to-back league wins was put to him at his press conference. “You guys are like the rest of the country at the minute, there’s no positivity in you! “If we win tomorrow, then the next one will be we’ve never put three wins on the bounce together. “My job as the manager is to just make sure the lads are prepared properly for the game and they know everything that will come to them in the game from the opposition, and then the most important thing is that we impose ourselves on the game.”
After a slow start, Town appear to be building some momentum, something which other clubs in the division will have noticed. However, Cook says how they may be looking at his side is of no concern to him. “I just keep going, you know me,” he said. “I know it’s boring for you guys [the media], but I’ve managed for too long now to see what football can do to you, good and bad. “The biggest focus for me is tomorrow, the focus for the players is tomorrow and it’s trying to beat Fleetwood Town, that’s all we can concentrate our thoughts on. “Yesterday’s gone, Cambridge went after Sunday and Monday once we’d done our debrief on the game and analysed how we can get better, same with Portsmouth and it’ll be the same with Fleetwood. “We just want to make our supporters proud of us. To do that, we can’t always win but we can play with the desire and a work ethic so that they can see what we’re trying to do.” Defensively, Town kept only their third league clean sheet of the season at Fratton Park and, while the Blues are still joint-sixth in a most goals conceded table, they are showing signs of becoming tighter at the back. “Our work is very, very similar daily and weekly to what we do,” Cook reflected. “And within that you’ll see the bad moments when teams score like Cambridge, where we’re all leaving the ground feeling like it’s the end of the world. “But it’s not the end of the world, we’ve dropped two points, it’s football and we will drop more points in the future. “The reality is when you work hard and you’re doing the right things, good things will happen. “And for us, we’ve seen the benefit of that on Tuesday night, where we put a complete team performance in. Now the pressure becomes on putting more complete team performances together. “Isolated ones are not good enough, we have to put collective ones together. So, for us, we come here and we’re lucky to be in jobs that we’re in and we’re paid to do what we do, so we’ll just keep working hard. “Stats and figures are for all you guys to say when managers have won one in 12 and nine in six and all of that, but all of a sudden now people perceive that we’ve turned a corner. “It’s a long road this league and we’re 13 games in. Thirteen out of a 46-game campaign. There are no medals given out and there are no plaudits, there’s nothing other than a long way to go for everyone and we’re just going to work so hard.” Cook says he knows his Fleetwood opposite number Simon Grayson well: “He’s a good manager and a good guy, Simon. A really good guy. He’s had fantastic success everywhere he’s been, he’s got an outstanding CV. “I think Fleetwood have gone down a little bit of a different road now, a little bit of a younger squad if you like, and an energy, probably through [being] an U23s and academy-based club trying to get players into the first team. “And Simon’s managing those young lads really, really well. They’ve got threats all over the pitch, [Ged] Garner and [Ryan] Edmondson at the top end, [Callum] Camps and [Daniel] Batty [from midfield]. “They’re a good side, they’ve got a nice style of play, a good identity and it’ll be a good game tomorrow. It’ll be a tough game, that’s for sure.” Cook knows the importance of maintaining the feel-good factor from Tuesday’s emphatic win at Portsmouth. “One hundred per cent, we’ve got so many supporters, supporters clubs, how well did we travel to Portsmouth on Tuesday night? How much did it mean to our players to score in front of that away end? You’ve got to feel it. “You have to feel it, you have to feel the pressure. I don’t feel football pressure. I feel the pressure to deliver for supporters because I know what it’s like to be one and I want those messages to go through to our players. “Because when you make those supporters happy and you see your team celebrating in front of them, there is no better feeling in the world.” After such an impressive display at Portsmouth, Cook is unlikely to stray too far away from the XI which started. Christian Walton will continue in goal with Janoi Donacien, who picked up two assists at Fratton Park, at right-back and Matt Penney on the left, assuming Hayden Coulson isn’t ready to return from his thigh injury. Toto Nsiala looks set to continue alongside George Edmundson at the heart of the defence. Skipper Sam Morsy will be in central midfield alongside Lee Evans with Edwards probably continuing on the left, although that may depend on whether Scott Fraser has recovered from the knock which kept him out on Tuesday. Sone Aluko has done more than enough to keep his place on the right, although there may be questions whether the Nigerian international is ready for three games in eight days with Wes Burns Cook’s alternative. Conor Chaplin is likely to be in the number 10 role with 10-goal top scorer Macauley Bonne the lone out-and-out striker. Fleetwood lost 1-0 at home to Burton on Tuesday having defeated Crewe Alexandra 3-0 in their previous game, also at Highbury. However, the victory over the Railwaymen is their only win in their last six in the league and they are down in 20th, four points and seven places behind the Blues, although they recorded an impressive 4-2 win at Rotherham in September. “We will be respectful of the opposition, and I’m sure Paul Cook and his team will be respectful to us,” manager Grayson told his club’s official site. “They are a strong team, you only have to look at the squad they’ve got, even with the quality of some of the players who aren’t even in their 25 — it’s ridiculous the number of players they’ve got. “They’ve had some good results recently, most notably their win over Portsmouth, which was a great result, but we will go there in good spirits knowing that we can play as good as anybody. “We went to Rotherham and beat them 4-2, we went to MK Dons and drew 3-3, and drew 2-2 against Sunderland. They are all in the top six right now with some even in the top two so we know we are capable of giving anybody a game.” Grayson has a number of injuries with Brad Halliday and Darnell Johnson both out for the season. Several of the other players out are getting near to a return but unlikely to be involved against the Blues. “Jordan Rossiter and Tom Clarke are moving closer [to fitness], especially Tom,” he told the Fleetwood Weekly News. “Shayden Morris is getting closer too and Harrison Holgate. “It was nice to see Pilks [Anthony Pilkington] on the bench on Tuesday. Looking at the bench, you had a bit more experience on there with Joe Garner and Conor McLaughlin as well.” The teams’ meetings in 2019/20 were the first in their histories with each game ending in a 1-0 away win. At Portman Road in May, first-half goals from James Norwood, Gwion Edwards and Troy Parrott saw Town to a comfortable 3-1 victory over Fleetwood in a typical meaningless final-day game at Portman Road. Norwood gave the Blues the lead on three, Edwards made it 2-0 six minutes later and Parrott added the third on 29, while Burns, playing his final game for the Cod Army before his move to Town, pulled one back for the visitors in the 72nd minute. Fleetwood were victorious in last season’s match between the teams at Highbury in March in Town manager Cook’s fourth fixture in charge of the Blues. Former Town loanee Callum Connolly, now with Blackpool, and Ged Garner were on target as Fleetwood deservedly won 2-0. Connolly nodded the opener in the ninth minute and Garner added the second with a low shot on 57 with Town never looking like they would get anything from the game. Burns joined Fleetwood on a permanent basis in January 2017 having previously had a spell on loan in the second half of 2015/16. In total for the Lancastrians, the winger or right-back made 145 starts and 45 sub appearances, scoring 29 goals. Blues right-back Donacien was on loan with the Cod Army in the second half of last season, making 16 starts and three sub appearances. The Fleetwood squad includes former Blues striker Joe Garner, who joined them in the summer after leaving Cypriot side APOEL Nicosia. Garner was with Town during 2017/18 scoring 10 times in 29 starts and three sub appearances. Young Blues keeper Harry Wright moved to Fleetwood following his release by the Blues in the close season but is yet to make a first team appearance and is on loan at Farsley Celtic. Saturday’s referee is Sam Allison from Wiltshire, who has shown 43 yellow cards and five red in 11 games so far this season. Allison, who is in his second year as an EFL official, will be taking charge of his first Town match. Squad from: Walton, Hladky, Holy, Donacien, Vincent-Young, Penney, Coulson, Edmundson, Nsiala, Burgess, Woolfenden, Morsy, Evans, Harper, El Mizouni, Fraser, Burns, Chaplin, Celina, Aluko, Edwards, Bonne, Pigott, Barry, Jackson, Norwood.
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