Ritchie Sez............

Discussion in 'Bulletin Board ARCHIVE' started by Guest, Dec 12, 2005.

  1. Gue

    Guest Guest

    BARNSLEY manager Andy Ritchie gave his thoughts ahead of tomorrow's FA Cup Second Round replay against Bradford City.

    He said: "We are going into the game with pretty much the same squad. Nick Colgan and Stephen McPhail are still out although we are expecting them back for the weekend. Matt Carbon is back with us and trained today and Daniel Nardiello is also in with the first team again but is still a week or so away from action.

    "Stephen has had an injection this week into the point of pain in his knee and that has worked well. He has done a bit more today so hopefully we will be able to take him to Yeovil.

    "Nick is getting better and better but is still in pain when he kicks the ball. We will just have to wait a few days to see if that settles down.

    "When he does come back it really does give me a massive problem in goal because Scott has come in and done well. We all know how well Nick has done this season so I will have a massive decision to make although we will cross that bridge when it comes.

    "The only problem we have from the weekend is with Chris Shuker, who is struggling with a heavy cold. He was complaining of it on Saturday and the Scnuthorpe game has really taken it out of him so we will have to wait and see how he is tomorrow.

    "We want to have everybody fit and ready for Christmas and having Daniel Nardiello back is going to be a major boost. It will be good to have that extra striker in the squad again and keep the pressure on Paul Hayes, Marc Richards and Nathan Jarman.

    "I was very pleased with the result on Saturday and it is always nice when everything comes together like that. We had threatened to do that to teams on a couple of times this season and it was great to score five. Having said that I felt that we still missed too many chances and we could have really had eight.

    "We are very, very pleased but we are not rushing ahead of ourselves and still have a lot of work to do. It will be a different game tomorrow night and we have to be ready.

    "We have already had two fantastic games of football against Bradford and I am expecting more of the same tomorrow evening. Both teams know they can cause each other problems and I am expecting more of the game tomorrow for the right to play Walsall.

    "We really could have done without a replay to be honest especially with the month of games we have coming up. It is not what either of us wanted so we will be looking to win the game in 90 minutes and come back fit and well.

    "Both sides are very similar and both play attacking football. We both play with two wingers and like to get forward so it should be a pretty open game.

    "A game against Walsall is a great incentive really because it is a match we can win and go even further in the cup.

    "We are playing well at the moment and are going well in the league table so hopefully if we can keep doing that then we will get a few more people out of the woodwork. We will always try to play entertaining and attacking football because that is how Rick Holden and I were brought up in the game. If we can keep that up over Christmas and into the New Year then maybe we can start bringing the doubters back to Oakwell.

    "That is always the way in football and there are always people waiting for you to slip up. It is the same at every club. I believe we are still a little ahead of schedule and we are not getting carried away with things but we will continue to try and win every game.

    "I was a little disappointed on Saturday because I felt that three of the lads could have easily scored more goals. I want us to score as many goals as we can in every game".
     

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