September 2023 (Page 4)

Yeovil Skipper Josh Staunton has spoken to the BBC ahead of the trip to Hampton and Richmond this weekend and has said he is enjoying the challenges this season has thrown up… including a positive kind of pressure. 

“It (This season) been a bit more unpredictable in terms of style of play, I’d say I think when you’re in the league above, it’s probably easier to do analysis on teams you’re playing against and teams are a bit more consistent in terms of players and style of play.

You kind of know what to get and obviously you’re going to games completely different, there’s a difference going to Chesterfield where you come away and think a point is a result, where we’re in a position this year where we want to try and win every game, so it’s enjoyable. 

They serve up the different challenges and sometimes going to games a bit more blind than you’d like to be it gives you a real chance of focus on yourself and not worry about about the opposition.”

“It gives you a real chance of focus on yourself and not worry about about the opposition.”

“I think pressure is relative to the position you’re in isn’t? I think it’s about learning to deal with pressure and making pressure bring out the best in you really, I know much rather have the pressure of being at the top of the table and winning than the pressure of scrapping around for points.
It’s a much more enjoyable situation and although there’s pressure, it allows you to be more free.
There’s pressure in football in every game, no matter where you’re playing, or who you’re playing for, there is pressure and as I say it’s a different kind of pressure, it’s one we need to learn to relish and and the team really needs to learn to make that pressure ‘positive pressure’.

When asked about the changing room environment, it’ll come of no great surprise to hear the skipper talk about the current situation as if it’s night and day compared to last year.

“Obviously there’s a wealth of experience in there this year and it makes life easier in terms of delegation around the dressing room and around the club things kind of look after themselves a bit more and obviously winning is a much easier environment than losing but it serves up his own challenges, keeping boys level headed – just because you win one game doesn’t mean you wouldn’t win the league – and it’s about that striving to be better every day – just because you won on Saturday doesn’t mean you’ve cracked it for this weekend – it’s it’s building building and trying to progress to where we want to be and it is it’s a much there’s no I think people should say it was a bet they were worse environment it’s a better environment when you win against a football and towards a writing at the table but it’s not coming complacent and it’s working every down there’s raining ground like you want to be a champion come the season and that’s the that’s the environment you have to try and build day to day in the dressing room.”

Focusing on this weekend’s game, Staunton says the homework has been done, but they’re ready for whatever is thrown at them.

“We know their shape in the last few games, but as I say the teams still searching at this time of season to find their perfect formula, I think we’re by no means the finished perfect form of ourselves so, we’ll go into it with an idea of what they’re going to produce, players might change they could throw different shape out and especially when you’re one of the bigger teams in the league you find a lot of teams adapt for you so you do kind of go into a game thinking they’ve done this the last two weeks but then they’re playing a bigger team they might change up completely so, its still a lesson still learning curve for us but we’ll go there focusing on us and believing if we do it right we’ll we’ll be able to get the job done.”

“We’ll go there focusing on us and believing if we do it right we’ll we’ll be able to get the job done.”

“I’ve grown up playing in and around London myself so I’m kind of adapt to that there’s always a physicality which comes with London teams there isn’t it from sick under 16’s onwards they used to be built like blokes at 15 – I don’t know what they put in the water around the Central London area.

The away day experience is learning to adapt to the environment, it’s eleven players playing against you every single week and it’s how you find the solution to beat them.

The away day experience is not letting the environment be an excuse for you, we could say ‘it’s hard to go to London’, but they’re going to come here and it’s the same group of players, so we can’t use that as an excuse.”

“At this moment in time the pitches are all to a relative standard, but we dont know where that’ll be in January, when the pitches are a bit more beaten up, but we’re not looking to make excuses, we’ll go to London with our chests out hoping to bring three points back.

With plenty of players performing well and the goals starting to flow, Staunton was pleased with how the team – including backroom staff. – had worked hard to make sure as many players were available and fighting for a spot and that depth could well become key as the season rolls on.

“Firstly, we’ve had a real onus this year – Joe the physio has done really well, we’ve brought in Weston who’s been excellent, to add to that department and oversee the football, it’s been about getting players on the pitch and making players available to be on the pitch. There were times last year we were down to the bare bones,

“There’s been a real hard work in that department, to try and make sure we are managing loads during training and managing minutes for some people, and that adds to the squad depth.

It’s a lot easier when you’re not relying on the same eleven players to play 44 games, you can take someone out for one and it stops them missing four games, that squad depth is key and it’s probably a strength we have over other teams because of the calibre of players we have in every position.”

You can listen to the full interview below