00:00A 2-0 pre-season defeat against Championship Portsmouth, but a good sort of test there against obviously a good outfit early in pre-season?
00:08Yeah, I think showed the levels today. I think they're three levels above for a reason.
00:13But it's always good to just, you know, pre-season to get shown the things or highlight the things that you're short on.
00:22We knew they'd press, we did a bit of work on it yesterday and in a game we might have tried to come up with different solutions.
00:29But for today's point it was about trying to beat the press, play around the press and we couldn't cope with the intensity they worked at.
00:37And that's what levels are, they're smarter with the way they press you, they're better on the ball when you try and rush them, they keep it better and they stretch us.
00:46And in a game, you know, if we were playing them in a competitive game, we might come up with a different game plan without the ball.
00:52But we wanted to get the legwork out of it, so we tried to press high and we got exposed at times.
00:58But that's part of pre-season, so yeah, I'm not despondent, there's loads to learn from it.
01:04I wanted to maybe put a better account in than we did, but it is what it is, it shows us where we are.
01:10Yeah, obviously pre-season, especially early in pre-season, it is about obviously getting that fitness and legwork in.
01:15And that's why you would have played that way and obviously you had a game from that, weren't you, building things up.
01:24Yeah, there's loads to work on, we got loads wrong today, the quality of our play, the quality of our decision making.
01:29But again, we were rushed to play a lot quicker than we've been used to and it showed.
01:36And, you know, that's why the levels are there for a reason, Premier League down at the Championship all the way down to where we are.
01:42It's them levels are there for a reason and they showed today.
01:45Obviously we haven't wanted any injuries, will Yaskaline have to come off obviously after a collision on the 50-50, a bit early yet to know?
01:53Yeah, we don't think it's too bad, it was precautionary, I think the physio just didn't want to take any risks, so they made the call.
02:01So, yeah, I hope that the initial prognosis is what it is and it's not as bad as we feel.
02:08So, yeah, like I say, the rest of it we've come through and we work towards the rest of the week and keep trying to add one or two bits of quality where we can.
02:17And Chin came off in the first half as well, is that all fine then?
02:20Yeah, that was fine, that was just more regulating everyone's minutes.
02:24It's a bit of a tricky one with three centre-halves, so we just had to work the minutes.
02:29Yeah, because he obviously played quite a long game on Saturday, didn't he?
02:33Well, they've all had, all the centre-halves have had 60s.
02:35So, in the games, Chin came back on in the game and got his 60 just separated, as did Tunji on Saturday.
02:45So, it was just, they've had two 60s, the centre-backs.
02:48We just try to juggle their minutes so that we don't pick up any injuries.
02:51Obviously, yeah, early days in pre-season, but obviously happy with sort of, you know, what you've done so far in terms of obviously getting players in
02:58and sort of just early on in pre-season, working on things.
03:01Yeah, we're happy with the progress we're making.
03:03We obviously, we're looking to bring more balls to the squad, bring more players in.
03:07So, hopefully that will happen. We're working on that.
03:09And it's all about building to August the 9th.
03:11But, you know, I'm not going to just say pre-season is just about minutes.
03:15You know, you want to get good habits that win games of football.
03:18And today we got exposed by a very good championship team.
03:21So, we'll learn from that and try and be better in our next three or four games, whatever we've got.
03:27And obviously, the fixtures came out last week.
03:28And obviously, we know obviously on that August 9th, it's going to be Carlisle at home,
03:31which is really a sort of bumper sort of fixture to start with, isn't it?
03:34And I guess now you sort of really sort of, you know, you'll manage to build up towards that.
03:37But you've sort of got that target in mind now, sort of knowing, you know, where you start here at home.
03:41Yeah, of course. No one quite knows how tough the league's going to be, who's going to be the best team.
03:47So, you know, you're all feeling it out and trying to build momentum from day one.
03:51So, we'll be the same as everyone else in Carlisle.
03:54So, yeah, it's exciting. Look forward to it.
03:57And, yeah, as you say, just you'll keep working away.
04:00You're obviously trying to add, obviously, before then, you know, squad-wise, as you can, presumably.
04:03Yeah, yeah, of course we'll, yeah. We're sort of four or five short.
04:06So, we'll keep chipping away at that.
04:08And then Cray Valley Saturday, obviously, as I say, you know, four more sort of friendlies building up.
04:12That's just the next test and you obviously look to get out from that what you can.
04:15Yeah, absolutely. We want to build everyone up from 45 to 60s, sort of 75s to 90s.
04:20So, we'll try and get that, all the math right over the coming weeks.
04:24But also try and build up some partnerships within the team, with players, so that we go into the season as a team.
