Northampton Town: Johnson wants to ‘liven up’ Cobblers
Bristol Rovers V Cobblers. Gary Johnson.
GARY JOHNSON will ring the changes to his Cobblers side for tomorrow’s game in the hope it will ‘liven a few of the players up’.
Town play host to Dagenham & Redbridge on the back of one of their most disappointing displays of the campaign, last week’s 3-1 loss at Macclesfield. Not many of the players who started that game can expect to stay in the team and Johnson has confirmed he will wield the axe.
“I’ve had individual meetings with a lot of players to tell them that they’ve got to up it a little bit,” he said. “And some of them will be coming out of the side as well, and they’ll be disappointed by that.
“What I’ve got to try to create is a competitive environment where people are desperate to get into the first team and will do whatever it takes to stay there.
“The lads who are with us need to know the situation and liven themselves up a bit. We need to get them to realise that they need to do more, and they’ll realise that when they’re left out of the team.
“Nobody likes to be left out of the team but they’re not showing me enough to play regularly. The majority of the players have played 10 games so I’ve given them every chance but we haven’t quite cracked it in that time.”
Johnson has spent some time this week exploring his options in the transfer market, with two potential new additions training with the squad and playing in a couple of practice matches.
But the understanding is that no signings will be made in time for tomorrow’s match.
“We’re not talking about spending hundreds of thousands of pounds, it will all be within budget,” said Johnson.
“We’ve had a couple of lads in training with us but they’re not fit enough to come in, they’re decent players though and we’ll have a look at them.”
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Friday, September 23, 2011 at 07:19 PMI look forward to reading Steve Riches take on this in next Thursday's Chron. Oh, wait, where exactly is Steve these days...?
mack80
Friday, September 23, 2011 at 06:06 PMI don`t think this Manager is clicking with his players we are well into the season and if these Pro players are not fit then the Cobblers haven`t a cat in hells chance of playing even in the play offs I support the team and would dearly like to see them give a better performance but recent statements made by the Manager and The Board of Directors have the players looking over their shoulders frightened at not giving their 100% which we all know if you try to hard it sometimes back fires and players are then frightened of making mistakes and panic which we see in the games this season
FranklyFrank
Friday, September 23, 2011 at 05:44 PMHorse and stable door, foot and shot all spring to mind! I would have thought that all the points GJ makes in this interview were a 'given' in any football club? Talking of wielding the axe after nine games leaves me gasting for flabber! He has just axed a complete squad and is now talking of axing the replacements - it'll be utter deforestation if he carries on. I cannot get on GJs wavelength at all, the bloke has my head spinning. That said something has to change as we desperately need the win against Dagenham tomorrow.
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Friday, September 23, 2011 at 11:12 AMWith best wishes. Ever thought of getting a proper job pa?. If I waved my arms and fingers around in the the road I would be arrested.
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