Keith Curle ahead of the Sunday evening Exeter City game
Manager Keith Curle spoke to us about tomorrow night’s big game against Exeter City ahead of the Saturday training session.“They’re a dangerous animal away from home and it’s probably their away form that’s seen them get into the play-offs,” he said. “We’re mindful of that and we’ll prepare for it. They have a good, healthy squad and they have options which we need to be alive to.
“They’ll play their best team and so will we. Paul Tisdale showed great respect to ourselves and the football community by playing their best team last Saturday. The only thing different is that hopefully there’ll be in excess of 10,000 people here.
“We have characters within the squad who will rise to that and they’ve enjoyed the success their football has brought and they want more of it.”
On the manner of last week’s dramatic win, he said: “We’ve gained 26 points from being in losing positions and they’ll be well aware that we have a mentality that means conceding a goal doesn’t change the way we want to play the game.
“We can be a force to be reckoned with whoever we play and we know we have ammunition we can hurt them with. There’s also a huge amount of respect from us for the fact they have key personnel who could cause us problems.
“They’ll come here with confidence. Their style of play will suit the playing surface we have here because they have good movement and good dynamics. We want to make sure we’re still in the play-offs as a competition as we head into the second leg.”
And on the respect he has for the opposition manager, he said: “I like how he conducts himself and I like how his team plays football. He has a philosophy on how he wants the game played and it’s one that has brought him results.
“You associate Exeter City with a certain style of play and that’s because it’s free-flowing and entertaining. We’ll go through every scenario we think we’ll face and we’ll take one game at a time.
“The message we’ve given out all week is that it’s about playing the game and not the occasion. There’ll be nerves, of course there will, but it’s about embracing that and using it to your advantage.
“One thing we do know is that we are going to have a very good crowd behind us who will be willing us to win and score goals. As we sit here now we’ve just gone through the 8,500 mark with ticket sales and that’s brilliant. We asked for ten thousand and it looks like we’ll get that easily.
“The fans will do their bit and I know the players want to get out there and give them a performance worthy of their support. We’ve prepared well, we’ve given the players the information they need and we have an attitude which means we don’t show any fear to anyone. We’re looking forward to what will be a very good game.”
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