Ahead of the home game against Bradford City on Saturday, United’s interim manager Nick Daws hasn’t ruled out making a few changes with the upcoming League One play-offs in mind.
A 2-0 victory over Plymouth Argyle on Tuesday night sealed Scunthorpe’s place in the end of season competition, and the success over Derek Adams’ side was a fourth win in a row and also saw a fourth clean sheet in succession.
Daws spoke to iFollow Iron prior to the final match of the regular season against the Bantams.
ON PREPARATIONS…
ND: The 11 players on Tuesday night were outstanding, while the others have been outstanding in training as well. We have a lot of things to think about, have to consider the squad and assess whether everybody is in a good place, which they pretty much are, and whether we decide to make any changes to rest people. We have a good squad available to us and don’t want to lose that momentum, but I’m confident that whatever team’s selected for the game against Bradford that they’re more than capable of picking up three points and continuing that. The 16-ish players we’ve used over the last six weeks have been outstanding and have all contributed – whether that’s trying to get back into the game, holding on to a slender lead or looking to reaffirm a more comfortable lead. Whichever way we go, we’ll be confident of picking up three points.
ON THE CHANCE OF CHANGES…
ND: There’s a justification for giving some of the boys who haven’t played in the last five or six weeks some game time, because we might need them in the coming weeks. We know we have a really good squad of players. Just for the integrity of the league, you have to go out and give your all – as we expect everybody else to do. There was an occasion in recent seasons when we were on the other end of it, when Wigan secured promotion and Barnsley pipped us to the last play-off spot. We have such a good squad that we could replace all 11 and I still feel we could win the game. The boys who didn’t play on Tuesday night did an extended training session on Thursday and are raring to go. You could tell they have the bit between their teeth. We’ll sit down and have a chat about the team, and then prepare it on Friday ready for Saturday. We’re ready, prepared and know exactly where we need to be. We’ll put all the requisite work in place to get that result.
ON BRADFORD’S APPROACH…
ND: We played MK Dons only a week ago and, to all intents and purposes, they’d been relegated that day but after we’d dominated the first-half they showed they still had the character to get a result. Bradford will be in the same position, with a talented group of players and an incredibly talented and experienced manager (Simon Grayson). He will be wanting them to perform. Bradford is always a really good game for us here because they bring a big support which helps create the atmosphere in our stadium. They will want to win the game, so we will do our work properly and make sure we counteract anything Bradford throw at us and be better than them.
ON INJURIES…
ND: There are no fresh worries, everyone who was involved for Tuesday has trained. Funso Ojo (who took a knock in midweek) trained on Thursday like everyone has, and he’s fine. We have no doubts whatsoever and everyone is in tip-top shape, which is good.
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