Luke Joyce on captaining United against Colchester
We spoke to midfielder Luke Joyce ahead of training on Monday about the away defeat at Colchester on Saturday.“We’re disappointed, especially with the manner of the defeat,” he said. “We haven’t lost many games this season so to lose in that style when a lot of fans had made a big trip down was disappointing.
“We’ve just watched most of the game back and we’ve talked about things we can do better and improve on. Hopefully we’ll build on them this week in training and look to put them right on Saturday.
“There were positives in the game and we were on top and dominating the game for most of the first half. We were putting them on the back foot and we’d created a couple of chances and put them under pressure.
"If you stopped the DVD at 1-1 you felt like there was only one team who would go on and win the game. If you’d said to somebody we got beat 4-1 I don’t think they’ll have believed you, but that’s the reality."
“We know you don’t become a bad team in a week," he continued. "We’ve lost two games on the bounce but it isn’t the end of the world. We’re disappointed, we want to put it right and we’ve got a home game on Saturday to do that.
“We’ve looked back at it and seen Jason Kennedy’s goal, and he’s in an onside position, but the referees and linesmen are only human. We’ve probably had a few decisions this season that have gone our way so it’s swings and roundabouts. You’ve got to take the good with the bad and that isn’t the reason we lost the game 4-1. We won’t blame officials, we’ll look at ourselves first.
“We don’t need to be hitting panic buttons and we’ve said in there that we don’t want it to be doom and gloom. We don’t want the lads to be coming in with their heads down because we’ve only lost three games in the league all season.
"I think if you’d have said we’d be in that position in the middle of January we’d have snapped your hands off to be in third place with that record.
“We know we’re a good team with good players and we know we can do better than we did on Saturday, so we’re desperate to do that."
On leading the team out for the first time in a United shirt, he told us: “I was really proud to start the game as captain. It was disappointing with the result, with it being our biggest defeat of the season, but I was very proud to be able to do it.
"To get beat 4-1 as captain - you do take it personally. I was really proud to lead the lads out, I was chuffed to bits with it, but I was really disappointed with the outcome after 90 minutes.
“I think it does give you that added bit of responsibility and it maybe makes you want to give that little bit more because you’ve got the armband on.
"You want to try and talk to as many people as you can on the pitch and organise as much as you can, but everybody does that anyway. I’m really proud to have had the armband on, it might be the only chance I get this season, but if I do get another chance I’ll be delighted."
On the current run of form, he said: “Although the last two results have been disappointing I don’t think two games in the spell we’ve had so far this season can really take confidence away from you.
"If anything we’ve got to use it as a catalyst to remotivate ourselves to give you that extra little bit of bite between your teeth. We’ve lost two on the bounce and conceded seven goals but we know we’re better than that. That’s not the form of a team looking to get promoted so we need to put it right.
“We’ve got a home game on Saturday so we’ll be looking to put it right in front of our home fans. We had great support against Grimsby and we were disappointed we couldn’t give them the three points that day.
"Hopefully we’ll get another good turnout on Saturday and get the fans right behind us, like they have been all season, and this time we can get the three points on the board."
The next time the combative midfielder crosses the white line in anger will be career appearance number 400, with 104 of those for the club.
Speaking about his latest milestone, he said: “If selected it would be nice to get appearance number 400. Hopefully I’ll do my bit in training this week to make sure I’m on the team sheet come Saturday.
"It's great to get that under my belt but the important thing is the results for the team at the moment. Appearances and things like that take care of themselves if things are going right on the pitch. HOpefully we'll all be back to winning ways at the weekend."
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