John Rooney spoke to Silkmen TV after Saturday’s victory against Brackley Town at the Leasing.com Stadium, and was full of encouragement and confidence going in to our next test away at Darlington.
Rooney’s immediate reaction to the positive result was a pleased one, though a little subdued by the overall performance “I thought we were very good, but when we’ve got too much time on the ball, we make mistakes and overthink things, we need to make better decisions with the ball”
Referring to the recent warm weather experienced locally and the knock-on effects of the ability to play free-flowing football, John admitted “it got a bit messy, especially on a dry pitch and a hot day. I don’t think there was a lot in the game so we changed our shape and put Danny Elliott on with two up top to give us more of a threat up at the top end”
Albeit, the pitch somewhat hindered Macc’s early progress, Rooney also recognised the oppositions lack of familiarity with the surface “In the second half, we were making more runs in behind, they had a high line for large parts, and if you come here on a dry pitch and play a high line, we’ve got to be getting the ball to the players at the top end of the pitch with blistering pace. If other teams do that, we need to play beyond them, especially when it’s dry and the ball doesn’t roll truly on a hot day”
John also conceded that the performances haven’t been to the standard expected, though have still been enough to produce results, is a positive for him. “As I touched on after the game with the lads, we haven’t really put a performance together yet and we’ve won three and drawn one so for me, that’s a great sign and when we do start performing, we’ll start putting teams to bed better than what we have”
The Gaffer pointed out the obvious positives following on from this, being “we’re still unbeaten, we’ve won three and drawn one and the lads have found a way to win again, that’s the key messages from me, it might take 80 or 90 minutes before we get our first as we did, scoring two right after each other and that’s a pleasing sign aswell”
Following Brackley’s reduction to ten in the heat, Rooney referred to the struggles of said scenario “they sat more when they went down to ten, but also when you want to play with a quick tempo, the pitch slows it down for us, which is the same for both teams, but we can’t wait for a bit of bad weather to get some rain on there”
When asked about the change required following the red card for the challenge on Lincoln McFayden, the man at the helm was yet to learn of the extent of the injury “we’re hoping it’s just a bang, and that it’s nothing too serious so fingers crossed, we also lost Luis last week too so hopefully nothing serious but he needs to get it assessed for me to know more about it”
On the versatility provided by both Elliot Osborne and Ammar Dyer, John acknowledged “I thought when they moved they were brilliant to go and fill in, they were the ones playing forward passes, they slotted in well at each full back position”
Paying tribute to the afternoon’s goal scorers, Rooney was quick to add “I’m delighted for Bashi (Jon Ustabasi) to get on the scoresheet, getting his first goal for the Club at the WRS Star Lane End, hopefully that gives him a lot of confidence and can kick-start his season now, and Duffs (Luke Duffy) on the scoresheet again is pleasing, it’s about getting them players at the top end of the pitch to find the back of the net and two of them have today. We just need Danny (Elliott) and Adan (George) to pop up now too. Sometimes you see it with strikers where it takes them a while to get one but when they do, it kickstarts their season”
Recognising the value of his frontmen besides their goals, Rooney re-iterated, “especially for young Adan (George), his work rate and hold up play was really good against two big centre halves, and I’m absolutely delighted that they’ve helped us get three points”
Looking ahead to Saturday’s next game against Darlington on a grass pitch for the first time this season, Rooney insisted “our mentality will remain the same, to go and win the game, and I’m sure the lads will look forward to playing on a grass pitch, I know I did when I was a player, especially when we’ve been playing on slow, dry astro at this time of year, but when this pitch gets some water on it, it’s going to benefit us with the way we want to play too”
Not forgetting the fantastic home support with over 2,500 Silkmen supporters at the Leasing.com Stadium, John finished by acknowledging their efforts “They were outstanding, especially second half, they could’ve got frustrated but stayed behind us and that goes a long way as it helped get us over the line. I know what these fans are like being here as a player in the past, they get right behind you and that gives the lads a massive boost”
