Nuttall: We're confident that we can do the job

One of five players on Saturday making their home league debuts for the club, forward Joe Nuttall reflected on his first outing in front of a bumper crowd at the Sands Venue Stadium.

The Iron lost out to a late Oldham Athletic winner, but the former Blackpool frontman is confident that the new-look side can gain points quickly in the coming weeks, with 17 games to go this season.

Speaking to iFollow Iron, he said: “It was a disappointing result. There are some positives we can take away from it. In the first half, we played well and were the better team. 

“We had a penalty shout, and if the referee gives that we could’ve potentially gone 1-0 up early on, which gives us a boost for the rest of the game.

“There were six players in the starting line-up who were all new signings and haven’t played together before. I think in the coming weeks, you’ll start to see massive improvements once those players start to gel and take on board the messages from the manager.”

For the recently turned 25-year-old, an hour in the Lincolnshire Senior Cup at Spalding United and another 60 minutes against the Latics represented his first competitive minutes in 17 months when he represented Northampton Town in September 2020.

Despite the long and frustrating lay-off from playing games, Nuttall is confident he is finding match fitness fast and will grow fast now he’s getting a run of minutes on the pitch.

“It was great, and it felt good to be back out there,” he continued.

“The support was good, and it felt nice to be back out there on the field, feel it from the crowd, and I’m just looking forward to playing more games and getting sharper.

“The fact that I could play Tuesday and then Saturday was a big boost for me. Hopefully, I can continue with my run of games. I feel good. I’ve been training for a while. Obviously, game time has been at a minimum, but I feel good.”

A second home game in three days this time puts the Iron against a Saddlers team who have lost the last six and could also be drawn into a relegation battle should there be an upturn in results for the EFL’s bottom two. With the Iron’s new number nine alluding to focusing on the job in hand, he spoke of his confidence of a result on Tuesday night, along with a squad focus on putting together a run of results.

“We’re confident that we can do the job,” he stated. 

“It’s about grafting and trying to grind out results, and then hopefully we can climb the table. We’ve got to look back and learn where we can get better from Saturday’s game, but we can only take it game-by-game and look forward, rather than looking back. We have to improve. 

“We’ve got to keep focusing on ourselves, keep grinding and grafting, and hopefully get up that table.”

See much more from Joe Nuttall and Keith Hill on iFollow Iron.