Stevenage boss Dino Maamria has been speaking at Bragbury End ahead of Saturday’s match against Morecambe at the Lamex. Read on for what he had to say.
Dino it’s been a busy start to the season, views so far?
Yes it has been. We have to be careful not to burn the squad out, not to burn out the players.
We had a tough game at Crawley, we put in a lot of leg work, energy and covered a lot of ground. On Tuesday against Norwich it was difficult as we were chasing possession on a bigger pitch, I need to make sure my players are fresh and ready for Saturday.
And are they fresh?
Yes they will be fresh by tomorrow [Friday]. We’ll look after them today and tomorrow and be ready to go on Saturday at 3pm.
Any injury updates?
Ben Kennedy is back with us today, and is available for selection so hopefully everything goes according to plan. Danny Newton is still waiting to check out his rib from last week but apart from that I think we’ve got everyone back.
Morecambe haven’t had the best start, does that make them a good opponent or a dangerous one?
In League Two every game is winnable but if you’re not on it, you can lose any game. It doesn’t matter about where Morecambe are [in the table].
Some clubs have bigger budgets than others, but the budgets don’t play on a Saturday afternoon.
Yes Morecambe haven’t had the best start but that doesn’t mean they will be poor on Saturday, I’m sure they will be determined to put that start right, we’ll be determined to get our second win on the bounce in the league.
It’s about what we do and how we play, I’ve got to be sure my players are ready on Saturday afternoon to put a show on for the fans.
I think the first win of the season [against Crawley] is always a relief, you don’t want to be going into the season without a win.
Now we have to build on that. It’s a work in progress. We’ve got a lot of improvement [to come], it showed on Tuesday we have to do more.
You mentioned you conceded soft goals on Tuesday, have you been drilling the players defensively in training on the back of Norwich?
Yes, we do set plays twice a week at least. When we go back to Tuesday’s game, their first goal was a farce really if you watch it because Scott Cuthbert off the pitch who is our strongest player defending corners and he should have been on the pitch when they scored the goal.
He was receiving treatment and the referee waved him to come on before the corner was conceded.
It’s unusual for us to be that disorganised at a set piece so I wouldn’t really go into overdrive on it, it was just a bizarre situation.
Yes, we should’ve been responsible in getting organised together in the box, we did that this morning, showed them a video and we will improve on that, I think we’re a very good team in terms of organising set plays and defending set pieces.
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