ON LIAM PALMER
We’re delighted that Liam Palmer has extended his long stay with the football club. He’s been consistent and we’re delighted with him this season. He can play in multiple positions, he’s equally as balanced on his left as his right, his versatility has been great. He has a calming influence on others and he has a wonderful affinity with the football club. He loves the club and has been great in the community as well.
ON GILLINGHAM
They make it difficult for opponents and the manager knows his way around this league. It’s two teams with different styles of play and both teams will want to implement their style during the game. We need to get after them as much as they will be after us. It will be another excellent atmosphere at Hillsborough and we’re looking forward to being in front of our fans again. To have their support over this recent run of home games has been brilliant, with so many games at Hillsborough.
ON JOSH WINDASS
It’s great to have Josh back in training, he’s in good condition so now we’re going up his work and get him in full contact with the players. When he will be available will be down to how he reacts in training. It’s been a really pleasing sight to see him back and excellent work from our medical team to get him back. We’ll assess and see how he goes in the days and weeks ahead.
UPS & DOWNS
With Mass and George it was about building up their strength and giving them some minutes in a competitive environment and now it gives us more options in midfield. We feel they’re at a level where we can start considering them for the fixtures ahead.
Unfortunately, Dom Iorfa has a hip injury that will keep him out for some time. To lose a player of his class and dominance is disappointing. Sam has had a setback in his programme, we put him back on the training pitch but it didn’t work out as we wanted. We will give Sam the time, it’s about controlling his situation.
ON MOVING FORWARD
We want to replicate, and better, our performance against Sunderland. We feel it was a convincing performance, as were the games against Rotherham and Wigan for example. We had real dominant performances and got the right results. Our attitude to deal with the opposition was spot-on by the players. Although Sunderland has been the latest one, we feel we had strong performances in other games this season too. But, we don’t look back, we look forward and ahead to the next game to contend with tomorrow.
ON LEWIS GIBSON & CIARAN BRENNAN
We’re still in discussions with Everton over Lewis, who will also be out until the New Year. We’ll be discussing the best way to go forward. He’s back at Everton to receive treatment for now but discussions will be ongoing on him.
We’ve called Ciaran back from his loan at Notts County. He has to be looking at coming back into the frame, as a defender it’s an opportunity for him to stake a claim. He’s got to be looking to keep his performance levels high and when we need to call on him, we will do.
ON FLORIAN KAMBERI
Flo is a different player to the other strikers we have. His contribution to the team has been good. He’s come in and had to find his way and find out what League One is all about. From a psychological point of view I think he’s adjusted well, against Sunderland he was really good and hopefully people could see that his all round game was more rounded after we’d had more time to work with him.