Archived News from September 2015
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STEVENAGE PREVIEWS
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Murray wants Stags to 'put their foot down' ahead of Stevenage test
mansfieldtown.net, 28th September 2015 Mansfield Town manager Adam Murray says his side’s stellar defensive record is something they can’t become complacent with ahead of tomorrow’s game at Stevenage. Only Championship side Middlesbrough and fellow League Two club Wycombe Wanderers have conceded less goals than the Stags so far this season and Murray is aiming to take the next step by winning matches on a regular basis. Read more at http://www.mansfieldtown.net/news/article/murray-warns-against-complacency-ahead-of-stevenage-test-2715403.aspx#CllHS6Q0gQZueZlJ.99 “In the 72 Football League teams, there’s only two who have got a better ‘goals against’ than us so defensively we’re looking solid and now we just need to start putting it in the other end and winning football matches on a consistent basis which I’m confident we’ll do,” Murray said. “We’ve scored in and around the amount of goals that teams have scored in the play-offs, so it’s not like we’re not scoring goals. If we weren’t creating chances then I’d say it’s an issue but we’re creating enough chances to score goals so I’m not worried.” “The big thing now is to not get complacent and put the foot down and keep working hard. I keep saying it but the football club’s in a great place. From where we were last season, how far we’ve come in 12 weeks is a massive well done to our football club, to the fans and to the players for all the work we’re putting in, but this is just the start of the journey.” Tomorrow’s opponents Stevenage currently sit 20th in the Sky Bet League Two table after an inconsistent start to the season, but Murray knows that Teddy Sheringham’s side pose a different test to what they’ve faced so far. “When a team is trying to get wins and get a run of games going, they’re the hardest games and Stevenage is always a tough place to go. They’ve got a good new manager who are playing a different way so we’re going to have to make sure we’re on our mettle and we go there prepared and with a game plan to win. “I’ve only been in the job as a manager a short amount of time but I’ve realised these are the toughest games. You’ve got to go into them more focussed, more hyped-up, more concentrated and more prepared than sometimes you do to the top-of-the-table teams because inevitably, they take care of themselves.” The gaffer announced this morning that Chris Clements’ groin injury isn’t as bad as first feared and Murray is hoping to welcome the midfielder back into training in the next couple of weeks. “It’s not as bad as we expected so we’re hoping to get him back in the fold in a shorter space of time than we anticipated. “The initial look of it and the symptoms, we thought it was going to be 6-8 weeks. Like all his other injuries, he’s a quick healer and he’s a good few weeks ahead of where we thought he would be already so we’re looking at getting him back in the next couple [of weeks].” After stating in previous weeks that he’d like GPS tracking devices for the players to wear in training and in matches, Murray was pleased to announce that the club have used their partnership with Brooksby College to implement the devices in the future. “We’ve acquired the GPS vests now so we’re going to start using them in games which will give us better data on matchday distance and fitness. Obviously we’ve got a relationship with Brooksby and it’s part of their equipment and they’ve agreed to help us with it and we’ll help them with the data so they can give that to their students for their degrees.” To watch the full interview from today's news conference, log in to Stags Player. ------------------ Mansfield Town boss Adam Murray thanks the club’s ‘awesome’ fans for their backing chad.co.uk, by John Lomas, Monday 28 September 2015 Mansfield Town manager Adam Murray today paid tribute to the club’s supporters for their backing and reception at the final whistle of Saturday’s home 0-0 draw with high-flying Plymouth Argyle. “It was incredible,” he said. “This season they’ve been superb and I was proud of them on Saturday. “It was one of those games where it was tight, it could have gone either way. But they stuck with us and at the end they showed their appreciation, and that meant a lot to me and the boys. http://www.chad.co.uk/sport/mansfield-town/mansfield-town-news/mansfield-town-boss-adam-murray-thanks-the-club-s-awesome-fans-for-their-backing-1-7484695 “They can see how far we’ve come and the direction we are moving in and I think a big thank you needs to go to them for Saturday. “Sometimes I ask them to be better like they do of me. I’ve said it all along, for 12 years this club has been a massive part of my life. “I have always asked them to be better as a player and now as a manager and they have always asked me to be better. That will never change whether I am here for another week or five years. That’s the way we get the best out of each other. “On Saturday they deserved a massive pat on the back as they were awesome. We are trying to repay them in our performances and hopefully we will have a good season.” Reflecting on the battling 0-0 draw, he said: “It was a good marker to show how we’ve come. I think the pleasing thing for me Saturday was that the fans appreciated how far we have travelled in the 12 weeks we’ve had these lads together. “It was two good teams going at each other. They had chances first half, we had chances second half, and both teams defended well when they had to. “I enjoyed the game to watch and I think if we’d been a little more ruthless we could have come away with a win.” Murray’s side was very youthful against Plymouth and he said: “It is a bit scary at times. “You’ve got Mal Benning, who is 21, Nathan Thomas is 20, you’ve obviously got Jack Thomas and Mitch Rose, we forget that Pearce and Taff are only 25. It’s a really young team and at times it showed its naivety, which we knew and were prepared for. “But there is a willingness to learn and to work, and the big thing for me is the pride they all have in the shirt. They’ve shown that every game. “There’s not one person I could look at and say you need to give more. They are all giving their heart and soul at the minute and the fans are appreciating that. “It was a good feeling on Saturday. We didn’t win, though we wanted to. “We were in yesterday and we spoke about belief. It is a case we are still playing with our reins on a little bit which it’s to be expected as we are still finding our feet. “With a lot of young kids in the team, they don’t want to fail and sometimes you’ve got to take that fear of failure away from them. “We are saying we don’t mind mistakes as long as you are trying to do the right thing. They know I will always push them, and I probably over-demand at times, but are aiming for perfection here and however long that takes, we will continue on that kind of road. “Our next step is getting that belief in the team. The lads understand how good they can be and take it from there. “The lads came into the dressing room on Saturday and it was like we’d lost. For me it is a plus point. We obviously want to keep the confidence in there.” Murray added: “But they are pushing themselves just as much as I am pushing them. “We are ninth and one point off the play-offs and of the 72 Football League teams there are only two that have got a better goals against them than us, so defensively we are looking solid. “So we have now got to start putting it in at the other end and start winning football matches on a consistent basis, which I am confident we will do. “The big thing now is to make sure we don’t get complacent and we put the foot down and keep working as hard as the lads are. “The football club is in a great place and from where we have come from last season in 12 weeks, it’s a massive well done to our football club, to the fans, the players for all the week we are putting in. And, as I’ve said, this is just the start of the journey. “I don’t want to quicken time up as I am enjoying the journey but I want everything now as I understand where this team is going to be. So it’s very positive.” Murray said he wasn’t worried his side had failed to score for two games. He said: “We have scored in and around the amount of goals the teams have scored in the play-offs, so it’s not as if we are not scoring goals. If we weren’t creating chances I’d say it was an issue. “I am not worried. My building process from last year was I went into every game thinking how many we were going to concede. “This year my whole recruitment plan and whole coaching plan has been making us hard to be beat. I am not going to go away from that. “I want us to be solid and structured because the other end of the pitch will come. We’ve got players in this squad that can make things happen out of nothing and they’ve shown that. “So when we move the focus on to them - and I have spoken to them individually and as a group as they are frustrated - when I believe the team is ready to move onto the next step, then the goals will come.” ------------------ Mansfield Town hoping GPS vests can quicken Matty Blair return to fitness chad.co.uk, by John Lomas, Monday 28 September 2015 Mansfield Town manager Adam Murray now finally has the GPS vests he wanted for his players and believes it will help him get winger Matty Blair back to full fitness quicker than ever. The vests, which monitor every aspect of a player’s work on the pitch and training field, have been acquired in conjunction with Melton Mowbray’s Brooksby College. http://www.chad.co.uk/sport/mansfield-town/mansfield-town-news/mansfield-town-hoping-gps-vests-can-quicken-matty-blair-return-to-fitness-1-7484726?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed Blair, out with a serious knee injury since the end of January, made a huge step forward last weekend when he played the last 12 minutes of Stags’ home 0-0 draw with Plymouth. Said Murray: “We have acquired the GPS vests now, so hopefully we are going to start using them in games which will give us a little bit better data on matchday distances and fitness that we need to get Matty to. “That will help our training regime for Matty and the quicker we can get him back in the better. “I would have loved them a long time ago. We have a relationship with Brooksby College in Melton and it’s part of their equipment. They agreed to help us with and we will help them with the data we get so they can help their students with their degrees.” On Blair’s return, Murray added: “It was brilliant. I am over the moon for him and proud of him. For a bloke like Matty to come through what he has come through and be as strong as he is, I am chuffed to bits and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. “To come back at home and to help us to carry on our home form was fantastic. “I think out of the 72 teams there are only 13 teams that haven’t lost at home and we are one of them, so for Matty make his comeback in that little run is brilliant. “There is no friendly game for him this week with tomorrow’s game at Stevenage. But he is doing extra work when he can.” -------------------- Mansfield Town manager Adam Murray ready to pit his wits against Teddy Sheringham at Stevenage chad.co.uk, by John Lomas Adam Murray is looking forwards to pitting his fledgling managerial wits against England legend Teddy Sheringham at struggling Stevenage tomorrow night in a game the Mansfield Town boss knows may prove tougher than last weekend’s home draw with Plymouth. http://www.chad.co.uk/sport/mansfield-town/mansfield-town-news/mansfield-town-manager-adam-murray-ready-to-pit-his-wits-against-teddy-sheringham-at-stevenage-1-7484708 Stags have successive games away to struggling sides this week with a game at Dagenham on Saturday to come and Murray said: “I have only been in the job as a manager a small amount of time, but I have realised that these are the toughest games. “You have got to go in them more focused, more hyped-up, more concentrated, more prepared than sometimes you do to the top of the table teams because inevitably they take care of themselves. “But when you get teams trying to get wins and get run of form going they are the hardest games. Stevenage is always a hard place to go, we know that. “They have a good new manager in there that’s playing a different way so we have to make sure we are on our mettle and we go there prepared with a game plan to win.” Former Manchester United, Spurs and Forest star Sheringham is cutting his own managerial teeth at Stevenage have yet to win away this season but have won two and drawn one of their last three home games, including a 2-1 success against Plymouth. Murray said of Sheringham: “He is a legend in football. He is a fantastic player and someone as a player that I looked up to. That’s about it for me, though. My team is going there to win and that’s the bottom line. “There are a wide variety of players, managers, coaches and as a manager I’ve got respect for all of them but at the same time I don’t look up to any of them. “I respect them but I believe in my ability as a young manager and a young coach and I want to be the best and better than all of them. So I go into every game wanting to beat them and that won’t change tomorrow.” Although Stags welcome back right back and skipper Nicky Hunt from a one game ban tomorrow, they will be without midfielder Mitch Rose, who has also been slapped with a one game suspension after picking up his fifth booking last weekend. However, Murray said: “It’s a game in which we’ve got bodies to go in and carry the mantle forwards. So it’s not a big worry for us. “Mitch has not played a lot of football over the last few years so a little breather will do him good. He will come back all the better for it and he now has a clean slate too.” On former Stevenage striker Chris Beardsley’s shin injury, he added: “He trained yesterday, so we will see how he reacts today. “You look at the squad on Saturday - you had Lee Collins come in, who hasn’t played all season, you had Jack Thomas, who has not started, and I thought they did really well. “It showed they hadn’t played as at times they looked a little bit rusty. But that game would have been brilliant for them and will hopefully kick them on now.” ------------------- Reggie Lambe break will do him good, says Mansfield Town boss Adam Murray chad.co.uk, by John Lomas Adam Murray believes winger Reggie Lambe’s two week break from starting for Mansfield Town will do the winger a world of good. http://www.chad.co.uk/sport/mansfield-town/mansfield-town-news/reggie-lambe-break-will-do-him-good-says-mansfield-town-boss-adam-murray-1-7484744 Ahead of tonight’s game at Stevenage, Murray revealed that Lambe was one of the players suffering from a virus last week, having already started to look jaded. “Credit to them, we had a couple that didn’t train last week, but because of our numbers being low they came in. Reggie was one and when he came on Saturday I thought he was excellent,” said Murray. “He’s had a two-week break out of it as we thought he needed freshening up. He went last year from not playing any League football to getting chucked straight in when I took over, and had a big part in us staying in the League. “The season finished and he went away on international duties so he’s not had a break which has caught up with him a bit. So the two-week break we’ve given him out of the firing line, he looks back to himself and he looks fresh. When he came on Saturday he did superb.” He added: “That’s something we’ve got to be careful of. We’ve got people like Nathan Thomas, Mitch Rose, Reggie Lambe, Matt Green, these type of people who didn’t play football last year. They are straight into the mix now and for those kind of players it’s going to take (ends) ---------------------- TEAM NEWS: BEN KENNEDY IN TONIGHT'S SQUAD stevenagefc.com, 29th September 2015 by Dave Toyn Stevenage FC have been handed a boost ahead of tonight's Sky Bet League 2 game against Mansfield Town with the news that Ben Kennedy is included in the match day squad. The 18-year old, who shot to prominence with a string of eye-catching displays for Stevenage in the second half of last season, has been out for the past nine weeks following hip surgery. However with a week of training under his belt the Northern Irish youth international has now been included within the home squad for tonight's game. Read more at http://www.stevenagefc.com/news/article/team-news-ben-kennedy-in-tonights-squad-2717273.aspx#AxyMkAMY8GtEJ2IC.99 -------------------- |
Latest | September 2015