With the news today that Gavin Skelton has extended his stay with the club until the summer of 2021, head coach Chris Beech spoke about the support he’s received from the backroom staff as a whole since he came into the building on Tuesday morning.
“Gavin has been fantastic,” he said. “I’ve chatted to him a lot and he’s been brilliant in terms of where he knows where we are. He took the reins for the last week and he will have learned a lot from that.
“He’s fully supportive and I want to utilise that, which is why we've seen the news on his contract released today. He’s Carlisle born and bred and that’s something I want to tap into, not push away. Along with the other staff he had the plans already in place for Tuesday and Wednesday, and I was happy with that.
“They have travel plans and training ground booked for the weekend, it’s all sorted, so to get in the way of that and change that right now wouldn’t be congruent to us looking to be at our best on Saturday.
“I’ll get to know all of the staff in time, as we grow. The most important thing we got right at Rochdale was having good staff. I was a big voice in terms of how we go about that, in terms of the manager’s message, head coach’s message, the staff and players have to be congruent and follow that through, they have to be part of that.
“It’s no good him doing it and we’re not, we’re all doing it and he isn’t. We’ve got to do it together.”
And working as a head coach will mean a close working relationship with the club’s director of football, particularly with the January transfer window now looming large.
“David has been in the game a long time and I have no problem working with him,” he commented. “He’s been a manager himself. He’s played at a higher level and he knows a lot of people.
“If we’re able to utilise those connections, which go alongside mine, suddenly we’re stronger. It’s not about it’s my way. It’s our way. We’ve got to make sure we talk and communicate.
“I have no doubt there’ll be some speedbumps along the way. Targets will be looked at, are they cost-effective, does it work for the football club, if it’s a loan, what type of style is that player coming to, are they going to get well looked-after.
“I don’t think the player recruitment process will change too much from what’s happened in the past. I’ve spoken at length with David and the board, and I met all of the board in the boardroom.
“I’ll be implementing what I think is good, what we need to look at possibly improving and what we might need to help to make it happen. I know sometimes that can be difficult if work has been done to a set budget, but by no means is that an excuse to underperform, and it also doesn’t mean you can’t still work to make things better.
“We all go to work with a plan, every single one of us in whatever line of work we do, but it’s how you adapt within that plan that determines how successful you’ll be.
“That’s exactly the case with player recruitment. You can put an amount of names on a list, but it’s availability, price and timing, and they are all big factors in determining how you recruit players. We have five loan players in the building already, so to utilise that market there would have to be change within that.
“It’s pretty obvious that if I want to get somebody in then somebody will have to go, unless you house more loanees and you can’t play them all, which is obviously not cost effective.
“I’ll look at every element of the squad and I’ll be open to improvement in any area. I want to make standards higher in terms of what we do and how we go about things. I want the players to fight and to respond to setbacks, and I want them to represent the core values that their fans will want to see.”
Click HERE to watch an interview with Chris Beech on iFollow United now.
Click HERE to see a clip from this interview on our YouTube channel. Follow the same link for more FREE content right from the heart of the club.
