Yeovil Town skipper Josh Staunton has said he’s confident that the Glovers are heading in the right direction.
Speaking at the pre-match press conference ahead of the double header against Tonbridge and Havant, he confirmed he wouldn’t be available for Monday’s game but that Saturday’s was the first port of call.
“It’s a bit of a different one for me knowing I wouldn’t play on Monday but it’s it’s a good opportunity for us, we have the squad to be able to rotate which is is always crucial, it might give us an edge over some teams in the league with the quality we have in depth it’s a good opportunity for us to hopefully go back to back and really stake our claim and and get right up the league.”
Speaking to BBC Somerset, Staunton said that the situation, form and division of the team may have changed since last season, but that leadership was still throwing up it’s challenges.
“It’s a different challenge, I’d much rather be dealing with this situation than last year, but everything puts its own challenges up, we’ve been more focused on the things we haven’t done as a group and and how we can build and and about trying to build some momentum and confidence reallyand keep us on a level playing field; never too high when we win and and don’t feel like the world is going to end when we lose or draw so it’s been a different challenge but every every game is a different challenge and we’re trying to build as a group so it’s kind of like a work in motion”
With two wins, a draw and a single loss on the record, Staunton was adamant the side are gelling and working towards getting into a full flow sooner rather than later.
“I think that fans have turned out in their numbers and it’s been brilliant and hopefully throughout the season we’ll give them plenty of reasons to come back and those who have stayed away still, we’ll hopefully entice them in.
“It’s an exciting thing to be a part of, I think the fans are probably anxious when we’re not not ahead and understandably so, I think it’s going to take a bit of time for us to kind of get used to this positioning in the league and come to terms with the fact that we’re going to have to be probably a bit more patient in terms of the way teams are going to set up against us, I think it’s clear to see we’re all in it together, I think of us as one big community now and look to be focusing and trying to do things in the right way on and off the pitch and long may tit continue and and hopefully we’ll give them something to cheer about.
“We understand our shortcomings in the first four games we’re by no means a finished product and um yeah we’ll just look forward and it’s about looking ahead really isn’t it and I think the longer the club can do that rather than focus on kind of looking over at shoulder which has been the case for several years, it’s nice to be able to try and just focus on the football and and look forward to what’s ahead.”
There was plenty of chat about the differences between playing part-time and full-time teams and even about how they can go about scouting and preparing for each opponent, but Staunton was sure it was down to us to implement our game plan and dictate the games.
“I think we’re making steps in the right direction, I thought the first half on Saturday was a progression I thought we implemented some of what we wanted to do, and understanding a bit more (about) each players movements and where people need to be on the pitch, I think it’s going to take time.”
“It will take time because we’re making the manager’s lives harder than it should be because we’re not implementing ourselves as we should do, we’ve had to change shape a lot of times, that’s the players on the pitch’s responsibility in terms of sticking to the plan and doing what’s expected to us but in terms of personality wise the group is very good,
I feel like we’re going the right right direction.
When we have a performance which doesn’t quite represent what we want to be, regardless of the result, we’re very honest with each other and strive for better. It’s not ‘okay so let’s just paper over the cracks with a 2-1 win on Tuesday night’ we we understand we need to be better in certain aspects and implement ourselves further up the pitch, I think that’s clear to see, more penetrating passes and be a bit braver in that final third and we’ve been working hard to to make sure we rectify that and get ourselves ready for the upcoming games.”