Mike Dodds: “I want to win every game”
Sunderland Interim Head Coach Mike Dodds has outlined his aims for Sunderland’s remaining games. Daniel Wales reports.
Transcript
00:00 Sunderland are currently without star players such as Jack Clark and Patrick Roberts but Mike
00:10 Dodds spoke about how recent performances show that the current group are responding well to his
00:16 coaching. Yeah I think they're responding to all three games I think they've responded to my ideas
00:22 I think I've taken a level of the responsibility for the first half an hour because against
00:29 I don't keep going over ground but I've taken a little responsibility for the Swansea game
00:34 obviously we had Ballard and Jack missing we tried something that maybe you know we've got
00:41 two or three levels or two or three stages ahead of ourselves and it didn't work Norwich I thought
00:47 in the main there wasn't a huge amount in the game and it was fine margins and my belief is
00:54 that they've got one of the best number nines in the league and I think that was probably the
00:57 margin in that game and I liked a lot of the other night and I'm really conscious around answering
01:05 this because obviously we lost all three games and ultimately that's what I'm gonna be judged
01:08 on but in terms of me Mike Dodds I'm never gonna waver in terms of my belief as a coach I'm never
01:15 gonna waver or wobble in terms of whether I think I'm a good coach or a bad coach and I use this
01:20 phrase flippantly and I use it cautiously but it is what it is at the moment in terms of the players
01:28 like there's nothing I can do about that there's nothing I can do around we've had certain fixtures
01:34 and certain players not available it's almost like the perfect storm but I do genuinely believe that
01:40 the moment the team is in a reflection of me as a coach I think they've given me everything.
01:45 It was therefore important to ask what Dodds ambitions were for the remainder of the season
01:50 when the squad returns to a full complement of players. We never gain but I said that when I
01:59 first came in and that's not an arrogance or again it's not a flippant comment but I do
02:06 genuinely feel if we can set the team up properly and we have our strongest team out and they're
02:11 fully committed to what we're trying to do we should fear everyone in the league. No I don't
02:16 you know I think I think the other night we played against the Leicester team I mean you don't really
02:22 need to talk about the Leicester team in terms of the quality they've got and I felt we were
02:26 completely fearless. Once we do kind of get this ball rolling in terms of players back and you
02:31 know the everything settles down a little bit I want to win every game of football.
02:34 Finally the young talent of Chris Rigg has certainly made a good impression recently
02:40 Dodds spoke on how his opportunities would be managed. If he performs like he did the other night
02:48 I think I've said this previously age is irrelevant really for me you know I just look at performance
02:56 and you can be Chris Rigg 16 or you can be whoever who's 39 40 but if you perform in your play.
03:02 [BLANK_AUDIO]