Manager ahead of the Crewe trip
United boss Greg Abbott spoke to us about the trip to Crewe on New Year’s Day.
He said: “The last two home games have been excellent for us.
“The confidence has been there in the group anyway but we obviously needed that to be reflected in the results and the performances.
“We’re getting there now. It’s not as fluent as we want it to be just yet but we have shown a real spirit and determination, and the dressing room has got some reward for the way they have stuck together.
“We’ve come through what has been a tough period but, as we said on Saturday, this has to be just the start of it. Things look better for us but another couple of wins at what is a crucial time for everybody will improve that even further.
“Crewe are a difficult side to beat at home. They’ve only lost three league games on their own patch and that shows they are very well organised. We’ll have to go there to try and match them and we’ll need to start the game in the same way we have in the last two. If we do that then we'll give ourselves more than a chance of getting something.
“They have good players and we think we know how they’ll play against us, so we have to be ready to deal with all of that and make sure we are doing the work to allow us to play our football at the same time.
“I think we have to give the lads a pat on the back for the way they have responded over the festive period. We felt we should have won at Shrewsbury but we didn’t allow the result to affect us. We came back up here and we showed the fans a bit of the grit and determination we’ve been talking about.
“We have a really tough week ahead of us with our trips to Crewe and Swindon but we’re looking forward to it. The key is for us to build on the work we’ve done and to make sure we keep picking up the points as we go into the second half of the season.
“Things haven’t been anywhere near where we want them to be, we know that, but we also know that we have a squad that wants to do things right for all of us. Hopefully we’ll keep this run going and we’ll be able to start looking up the way again.”
