After his side secured successive draws against promotion-chasers Aston Villa and Derby County respectively, Tony Mowbray spoke to the clubs’ media team prior to his side’s trip to Stoke City, where they are no doubt aiming to come away from the Bet365 stadium, with some kind of points tally.
“Charlie (Mulgrew) has trained today (Thursday) after I told him on Monday to go and rest up due to his illness. He came back and joined the lads today and will probably be in contention to play on Saturday. I don’t think we have any fresh injury concerns, barring Ben (Gladwin) and Dominic (Samuel). The news on Jacob (Davenport) is quite positive as I think he’s getting over his knee injury. I think he’ll probably be back on the grass training with the lads on Monday, which will allow him to get back into the swing of things before being available for selection after next week.
“Jacob is a great footballer, who, when he was training with us, showed glimpses of his quality. He’s a young lad who has mainly been brought in for the future of the club, but had he forced his way up the pecking order, I would have had no choice but to play him. Unfortunately for him, that hasn’t happened due to his injury, but I expect he’ll be back sooner rather than later. Jack Rodwell played in the under-23s game against Arsenal on Monday and showed all the attributes that I expected of him. I think there’s an opportunity for Jack to get involved on Tuesday night at Bournemouth.
“The third game in a week is always the one that gives you the most thinking to do, as you think about who can keep their levels high enough to play, and who you need to rest in order not to cause injury. Our physical data stats last year were pretty interesting, because for the third game in a week, they seemed to get higher, rather than lower. By next Saturday, we would have played 5 games in the space of 14 days, which obviously takes a lot out of the lads. When you have this many games during such a short period, you’re constantly trying to prepare the team, 2 games in advance and thinking about who can make it and who can’t, which is a terribly hard task. There’s a lot of preparation behind-the-scenes that needs to be done.
“I think when you’re trying to develop a team, the rotation becomes difficult. I would like to move this team on and develop it into a slightly different team and yet, we don’t have enough training time, with the whole squad, to do so. The main thing we need to focus on, is the team effort throughout the season. The decisions I make are done to help the team and not for any individual. I obviously made a big change against Derby, where I brought on Danny Graham for Craig Conway after half-an-hour which was no doubt frustrating for Craig, but that was because we needed a different tactical approach of a target-man, that only Danny could have brought.
“The game against Stoke City on Saturday has the same message that I gave out against Aston Villa and Derby County, which was, ‘we need to relish the challenge of playing against the big teams in this division.’ Stoke City, for a few seasons, were Premier League stalwarts and that gives us the opportunity to test ourselves against a side who, last season, were playing against the best sides in the country. We need to go there on Saturday and put our all in, but also go there with confidence and no fears, knowing that we have the quality and ability within the squad to get all 3 points.”
