Typical of the man, defender Corey Whelan made a return to action for the first time in eight games on Tuesday night, and he slotted straight back in as if he’d never been away with a performance that could easily have earned him the man of the match award.
“I thought Corey was excellent,” manager Paul Simpson agreed. “I’ve got to say, over the season he’s done really well, he’s a real top, top character.
“He had an opportunity to leave in January, a club wanted to take him, I gave him the option to go and try and secure something longer term because I wasn’t prepared to guarantee anything in January, and he said no, I want to see this through, I want to stay and do the job. Whenever you call on me I’ll be ready to do it.
“I thought he did really well, especially second half when I’ve put him and Hunts as a two in a centre back pairing, up against Stretton and then Olaofe. I thought they stuck to it really well, and credit to him, that’s because he’s s good pro and goes about his business in the right way.
“It shows the way he looked after himself. We always knew over the last two or three weeks, we’ve known there was every chance Corey was going to play in this game, if we kept the same shape.
“We’ve been doing extra bits with him to make sure his legs are right, he’s getting his work in so when he comes in he hasn’t got the heavy legs. We’ve planned for this.
“These two games this week it was always going to be that Joel was going to play, because Saturday I wanted to go with a winger out there because I felt that was a chance. Against Stockport, the daft thing is, I always had it in my mind that we might need to go to a back four.
“I didn’t want to start that way because I needed to show consistency for the players, because we’ve been consistent all season. Thankfully it’s worked out, unfortunately it just hasn’t worked enough to get three points.”
Elaborating more on the offer made to the versatile defender in January, he explained: “He was made an incredible offer. He was offered more money to go, but he said no, this is where I want to stay.
“I’ve been here this far and I want to see it through, and whenever you call upon me I’ll try and make sure I’m ready. It was a League Two club, it wouldn’t be fair for me to say who, but he chose to stay and thankfully he’s been able to come out and perform for us.”
