Luke Joyce on the Crewe and Notts County games
We spoke to midfielder Luke Joyce ahead of training on Thursday morning as the lads prepare for the trip to Notts County.“It was a tough game on Monday,” he said. “Fair play to Crewe, I thought they were a decent team with some good individual players who can hurt you.
"We’re disappointed because we want to win every game but sometimes you’ve got to know when to grind it out and be happy with the point.
"They put us under a bit of pressure in the second half and we had a couple of skirmishes in the box, so we’re looking at it as another point gained on the road at a tough place to go."
“We had a couple of opportunities after Shaun Miller’s goal," he continued. "I think if we’d taken them it would have been a totally different game. They scored right on the stroke of half time which was great for them and disappointing for us.
“If we’d gone into half time one up and started the second half bright we could have hopefully added a couple more. It wasn’t meant to be and we managed to get a point in the end. I think there are times you have to grind it out and we know we aren’t going to dominate every game."
On his helping hand with Shaun Miller's seventh goal of the season, he said: “It was good to get the assist. If you’re not scoring goals then it’s your aim to try and provide them. I was made up with it, especially on the old left foot as well. It was nice to see Shaun get it and you always hope the strikers stick them away. In the end it was a great finish.
“I think on the highlights you can actually hear Shaun shouting at me. I knew he was there but I didn’t hear him. I was coming across goal and I didn’t see much going on the other way. I knew we had a few bodies on the reverse so I just tried to put it in an area and it landed at Shaun’s feet."
Ahead of the game at Meadow Lane on Saturday, he said: “Notts County will be desperate for points and they’ll be desperate to try and turn their form around. It will be another tough game, we have good memories of going there in the last game of last season, so hopefully we can try and do the same.
“It's the first of two games in quick succession but the festive period is what it is. We’ve got a lot of experienced lads in the dressing room and we’ve all done it before.
"It’s two games in three days which is just the same as the Easter weekend. It’s a quick turnaround but it's good because if you can pick up two positive results the league table can change very quickly."
“It is a busy period but the manager has looked after us," he told us. "We had a couple of days off after the Crewe game, which is always nice. You can’t be too extravagant on Christmas Day, we trained Christmas Eve and we obviously had the game on Boxing Day, so you can’t get sucked into what everyone else is doing.
"We’ve had two days off with our families and we’re now training today [Thursday] and tomorrow [Friday] before the game on Saturday.
“If we can get six points from the next two games we could be top of the table come Monday afternoon. That’s the aim. We know it won’t be easy but we’re looking forward to it.”
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