AFC Fylde manager Dave Challinor spoke to Chris Park after yesterdays win over Lowestoft.

 

So it was a decent performance and another decent win today wasn’t it?

Yeah it was a win but I don’t think we were at our best.  Certainly out of possession I think we’ve been a lot better this season and although we’ve done enough to win the game, on another day we could have found ourselves in a little bit of trouble.

I thought in the first half especially I thought we were a little bit sloppy and although we did enough to score two goals we probably could have had a couple more.  They also had two really good chances from sloppy bits of play from ourselves but hopefully that’s lesson learned but credit to them, they’ve come a long way and it’s difficult for them to travel the distances they do but they gave it a real go and kept us on it right to the end.

But I said before the game we’ve got to take care of what we do and then if we come in the dressing room at five o’clock and if there’s any sort of bonuses from elsewhere then that’s great which has obviously been the case today.

It’s another win and I suppose after the highs of two wins against Barrow today’s result was more important than performance and although we’ve had the performance in some aspects we all know that we can be better than what we were.

 

Looking as a whole it was three different scorers which shows again an attribute of your sides that there are goal scorers all over the pitch doesn’t it?

Yeah definitely, I think if you look at the goals we have had, even since I’ve been a manager, I’ve never had a player that gets 30 plus goals a season, I’d love to have someone like that, but I think the system we play allows lots of players to get forward so to share the goals around is a massive positive from my perspective because if we are reliant on one person then they get injured you leave yourself in a bit of a whole.

The centre half, Josh, has obviously got in there today for his third this season and Tom Hannigan has two himself already.  As a centre half you’d maybe look to try and get five in a season and as it happens, Tom’s probably the more dominant one in the air and he’s the one you’d think may have more but things have fell for Josh in the box and thankfully he’s stuck them away as he did today.

 

Tom had to go off with a slight knock today.  Was there anything serious in that and how are the other injuries looking?

No, fortunately it was just a bang on the head so he’s got a bit of a cartoon bump but I can deal with them and he’ll be fine and I’m sure he’ll train on Tuesday.

It was ok as we had a strong bench today and the squad’s probably the strongest it’s been since the start of the season with players coming back from injury onto the bench today.  Although some of the lads haven’t played a lot of football but when you’ve got a bench that consists of Michael Potts, Matty Blinkhorn, Michael Barnes, Luke Denson and Josh Wilson as a manager it’s great and it’s what we strive for.

There still a few young lads that didn’t get a look in today in terms of Dion Charles, Cory Bent, Joey Mullen and Ryan Charnley but the squad’s in a good place and we need to make sure the lads that we have get back up to match fitness and when we do that we’ll have massive competition for places.

We’re coming into a time of the season where we have a lot of games coming up – five leagues games in January which will be massively important.

 

The next game is an FA Trophy tie against a team in a higher division but there is only one place separating the two sides so you should fancy your chances shouldn’t you?

We do and obviously we’re playing well but I’m also aware that the jump between the division we’ve just come from and come into is a lot smaller than the jump between where we are and the Conference Premier.  It’s a tough division, I went to the replay when they played Chester and were good value for winning that game.  There’s a new manager gone in there in Steve Kittrick, I know Steve well and speak to him an awful lot.  He knows what we’re about as he’s probably watched us as many times this season as he has any other side so he’ll know what to expect and he knows we’re in good form.

It’s a good competition in the fact that we get the opportunity to test ourselves against teams from a higher division and you’re not many wins away from Wembley which, as a non-league footballer, you don’t get the opportunity to do very often.

So it’s a game we’re looking forward to, it’s a game that we can go and enjoy and then go an concentrate on what is a really tough league schedule for the rest of January.

 

Watch the full interview on AFC Fylde’s YouTube channel or follow the link above.