After Tuesday evening’s narrow home defeat to Chesterfield, Danny Searle’s squad will look to bounce back against a Solihull team struggling for form.
The Moors recorded a comfortable 3-1 win over Aldershot Town in February, (although The Shots did beat them 3-2 in the FA Trophy 4th Round) and have failed to pick up a win since, but Searle is conscious of the quality of his upcoming opponents.
Q: Danny, it’s important to bounce back after a narrow defeat on Tuesday, how have things been?
“Yeah, the lads have been in good spirits today, we’ve obviously looked at some of the areas that needed to be better on Tuesday. I think, obviously disappointed we didn’t get many chances.
“I mean, look, there wasn’t many chances in the game but from our perspective, we have been creating chances recently and to not create many on Tuesday was disappointing.
“The lads are in good spirits and we’ve worked hard on what we’re trying to do on Saturday and hopefully, they can carry out their instructions.”
Q: And on a lighter note, we had our quiz yesterday. It was good to see you and some of the lads get involved in the quiz and it was nice for the fans to engage with you guys as well.
“I think the engagement between ourselves and the fans and vice versa has been superb, given the circumstances.
“When you’ve got a situation where you can actually have a bit of a laugh and put a few quid in the pot without asking and begging for money, it’s great.
“I thought the lads who put the quiz together were excellent, I really got a couple of questions wrong because I wanted people to feel more confidence in themselves. It was a good laugh, it was well organised and the boys enjoyed it too.”
Q: Back on the game, a couple of days have passed at Chesterfield where you and I spoke and you said in the game, we’ve struggled to get the ball in the back of the net and live up to the job. Has that been worked on ahead of this game on Saturday?
“Yeah, I think it’s a tough one. Football should be about accountability and the bottom line is; whether you’re me that’s picking the team, or the tactics or the formation, whether it’s the players in the circumstances within the game, we’ve all got our jobs to do.
“And when you play games like that, you’re only going to get one or two chances. Their attacking player did his job, he scored and our attacking players didn’t.
“That’s not a detriment to them or a personal thing to them, it’s just that they didn’t take their chances. We need to make sure that, when that happens again, we do take our chances. Listen, the lads are in good spirits.
“It’s hard to stay angry with them – they want it so much and they work so hard. They don’t do it on purpose, nobody made the mistakes they did on Tuesday on purpose and went out and thought ‘this’ll be a good idea tonight.’
“Sometimes it happens and sometimes it goes your way and sometimes it doesn’t and on Tuesday it didn’t go our way, so we just move on.”
Q: Of course, on Tuesday, Harrison was involved and has been involved. Obviously, he’s meant to go on international duty, maybe a few people are asking why he hasn’t gone. Maybe we can just give a bit of an explanation?
“Harrison was one of the players who originally had COVID. Before you’re allowed to travel internationally with the team, you have to test negative.
“Unfortunately for him, there’s a 90-day period where you’re going to probably test positive continuously so that meant he couldn’t travel.
“It’s unfortunate, I mean it’s a bonus for us because we’ve still got a player but I feel for him, because you obviously want to go and play for your country when you get a chance.”
Q: And just on that, we’ve had players returning from COVID, what’s the latest on the injury news?
“So Kins, obviously, is still doing his recovery. Craig is still in his recovery. Ross is in a transition of working with consultants on what his issues are.
“Finney has had surgery so he’s obviously nowhere near ready to play, still sort of house-bound in that sense. I think that’s it, injury wise. Other than that, everyone is back in at full fitness.”
Q: Looking at Solihull, they’ve had a tough run of games, similar to us in a few difficult result in the last few weeks so we’ll be hoping we can go up there, pick ourselves up and get a good result against them.
“I think they’re one of the best team’s to have played here this season. It has actually shocked us a bit with the results they’ve been getting.
“We have to be mindful of that because, on paper, you’re looking at it and thinking ‘they’re in bad form,’ but we know on paper, they’re a really good side and at some point their luck is going to turn and we’ve just got to do the best we can to make sure it’s not on Saturday against us.
“Look, they’ve got good players, they’ve got a good squad of players and if it clicks for them, they’re going to cause us a lot of problems.”
Q: It sets up an interesting game because we beat them in the Trophy here, then they beat us in the league game here, so it ties up nicely for a good game on Saturday.
“I though they were comfortable against us here, I don’t think we caused them anywhere near enough problems and obviously that’s something that we’ve got to address to make sure we don’t have the same repeat on Saturday.
“They’ve slightly changed their shape and style of play with their new manager in there but as I said, you put good players in any shape or formation, they’re going to hurt you and we need to be mindful of that.”
Q: Exactly, with the new manager, they’ll be looking to impress and hopefully get a good run of games on their side as well.
“And hopefully not on Saturday.”
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Watch the full interview on our official YouTube channel HERE.
