Michael is like Clint [Dempsey]. You get the same from him every day of the week. Fortunately for us, that's a high standard of play. He does what he does on a regular basis. |
Our good shape was huge. We could've been better with the ball, surely. But the reason we had the clean sheet was the back three did very well. And when we lost the ball, we always had somebody defending, within distance to close the ball down. Our shape was strong. |
Our philosophy would be to put them under pressure and keep them back. That's going to stop them from going forward. It's a case of trying to turn the tables on them by putting pressure on them on their half of the field. |
Sealy has scored some good goals, one against us. |
Taylor's no different than any other striker. If he don't get service, he don't score goals. |
The biggest thing is that we're creating all these chances and, eventually, somebody is going to be on the end of it. Hopefully, that's sooner rather than later. It looks dead easy sitting on the bench and in the stands, but it's not. The guys are working hard at it and it will come good. |
The first 45 minutes, we moved the ball as well as any team I've been with. Would we have liked to put the ball in the net, well, yes, but as far as playing the game, that's how you play the game. |
The first thing with Clint is that he likes to play the game. He trains exactly how he plays and goes hard every day, so on Saturdays he gets the benefit. He's always trying new things, new tricks. The biggest thing is to try and point him in the right direction about when and when not to use the tools he has. |
The last two seasons we have played away in that game. And it definitely puts you on the back foot. We are absolutely delighted to be playing here but we have to take advantage of it. You don't just turn up and get the win, you have to put the work in. |
The main thing with Ralston was that he felt capable of starting. We felt it would give the team a boost to see someone with his experience out there. We knew we wouldn't get 90 minutes out of him so we left it up to him to tell us when he had had enough. There was no reaction to the injury, he just came off because he was tired. |
The other options on the bench were either guys who weren't 100 percent fit or ones who were very inexperienced. We felt that, if we could get the ball and get it out of our own half, that we had the right men on the field. |
The Supplemental Draft is a great way to augment our squad. We like all four players we took and look forward to seeing what they can do in a professional environment. |
The worst thing that can happen is for us to be out of the tie by the end of the first game. We need to get the result we are out to achieve and so we need to start by giving nothing away and then working our way into the game and getting forward. We want to keep as good a shape as we can at all times so we have to be talking and passing people on. We don't want players running all over the place, we want to stay with men. If we do that we'll be all right. |
There was nobody around him. It was just one of those things. |
There's a player that we like who we think could come available. |