Keith Curle on drawing games, red cards and managing injuries
Manager Keith Curle spoke this week about the run of results which has seen the side go 26 league games since their last share of the spoils – the 4-4 home draw with Wimbledon back in September.
“A run like this shows it’s all or nothing with us, doesn’t it?” he said. “We’re certainly a team that’s all in.
“There have been games where we’ve been in front and lost, but there have been other games where it’s been 0-0 or 1-1 and we haven’t settled for it. We’ve gone for it.
“That’s something I don’t want to take away from the team. I want us to be playing entertaining and attacking football. If we lose a game that could have been a draw, but win others that also looked to be a stone-cold draw, then I’m going to have to take that.
“The nature of the beast I’m trying to nurture at the moment still does have that edge of naivety to it on occasions. I don’t want to completely banish that from their game. We’re hoping the penny has started to drop with the game management side of it.”
And speaking more about the omission of defender Troy Archibald-Henville from the starting line up last weekend, he said: “The ideal scenario is we would do some team patterns and shape during training on the Thursday.
“Unfortunately, when we came in last Thursday morning, we found he was unable to train. We are governed to a large degree by him. There is a level of frustration because sometimes he can play on a Saturday and train on a Tuesday. However, on other occasions he can play on a Saturday, but not play on a Tuesday. I’m mindful we have a midweek game coming up so, as ever, it’s a situation we want to manage.”
On the two-match suspension for Danny Grainger, he said: “If you look at the large majority of his bookings. he hasn’t put a stud on anyone.
“Saturday’s was following a poor touch and, to be honest, he probably should have been booked for that! He committed himself to try to win the ball back but it wasn’t malicious in any way.”
“With the red card for Mark [Beck], there’ll be a conversation with Danny Grainger as the captain, Mark Gillespie as the PFA rep, and the player himself. Again, there was nothing malicious in anything he did, but the fact is he now isn’t available for three games because of his actions.
“As I did say on Saturday, it was mistimed but I don’t think it was designed to hurt anybody. It was a genuine attempt to get the ball, but it’s the kind of thing some centre forwards do.”
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