WATCH: Jet Clayton Taylor speak about his break-out season so far
Newcastle Jets midfielder Clayton Taylor talks ahead of training at Maitland Sportsground on December 27, 2023.
Transcript
00:00 I guess first of all Clayton, coming into this season what were your expectations and now we're at round 9 I think or 10, how is that all tracking for you?
00:10 Yeah well obviously I didn't expect I'd be going this well, I knew it was going to be a big step up to that league from where I was at in the NPL.
00:17 And you know I thought I was up for the challenge but you know I think things have gone pretty well so far this season, you know getting three goals and an assist has been pretty great for me.
00:28 Has Rob given you a bit of free reign in there? I mean you look like you bring a bit of X-Factor because other teams I guess don't know much about you or didn't before this season.
00:38 What's Rob kind of said to you before games and before the season in terms of how he wants you to play?
00:43 Yeah well he's always had a lot of belief in me and always known what I can do and he's always told me you've just got to go out there and show everyone else what you can do.
00:52 You know I know what you can do but everyone else doesn't know what you can do and like you said you can take advantage of that.
00:58 Other teams don't know a lot about you and yeah you can use that.
01:01 What about heading into this weekend? I think it was just mentioned that the Jets haven't won at home this campaign.
01:07 Yeah I mean how are you hoping that I guess you can damage the other team this weekend and hopefully get that first win?
01:15 Yeah well obviously we beat Western last time down there but like you said we haven't won a game at home this season yet so we're obviously looking to turn that around.
01:23 We haven't had the greatest string of form so far. It's kind of a bit disjointed so hopefully we'll be looking to start building up a string of wins to really kick start the second half of the campaign.
01:36 How do you think you can kind of get that consistency? What is the key or what have you talked about? What's going to turn that inconsistency into consistency?
01:48 Yeah well I think just being more consistent all over the pitch. Defensively, attackingly.
01:56 I think an interesting stat from the weekend was we had the same amount of big chances as Adelaide. We had five big chances there, five big chances but we conceded three of them and only scored one of them.
02:08 So I think that's a big thing just overall consistency in defence, conceding less goals and in attacks converting more chances.
02:16 How big would a win be just in terms of where the teams are on the ladder as well? You can put a bit more of a gap on teams below you and hopefully get back in that top six mix.
02:29 Yeah well the ladder is pretty tight at the moment. I'd say all the teams are pretty close together. I think a win will boost us right up near the six.
02:36 Put a good spacing between us and the teams down the bottom but if we fail to win it can get quite scary for us down the bottom. So yeah we'll definitely be needing a win.