• 19 hours ago
Transcript
00:00I want to ask you about Tom, you touched on him there, he had to be dragged off at half-time.
00:04Does that show what he's about as a boy as well, because he'll be determined to show what he's about?
00:09Not only from a statistical point of view and data that we look deeply into,
00:16myself with the owners, it was the human aspect of it,
00:22what we knew about him as a personality, as a player, as a character,
00:27and taking that part of the game away, the other bit of the game away,
00:32what I saw, what he gives to us, he stretches the game, he opens the game up for us in possession.
00:40Of course, he's come to score goals and he will do, he's not really had any clear-cut chances,
00:47unbelievable clear-cut chances, but they'll come and we'll create opportunities for him
00:55and the forwards, but we've been delighted with him as a 21-year-old boy.
01:00There's more to come, we've not brought him to be incredibly, unbelievably judged after two or three games,
01:08we've brought him for a medium and long term.
01:11He has to impact on it short term, and he is doing, in our opinion,
01:16but we're delighted and as I said, we understand his personality, his character and his mentality
01:24just as much as the other parts of his game, the qualities that he brings to us.
01:31Is that something that you've found changed in modern football,
01:34that sort of instant players are expected to come in and hit the ground running
01:38when maybe 10, 20 years ago there wasn't that sort of instant focus on them?
01:42Is that something you've seen change?
01:44Yeah, I mean listen, it's a fair fee, so we had to pay a fair fee and I think the board,
01:50so they supported me and we were on the same page from what we wanted to do.
02:00So, you know, Luton paid £10 million for a centre-half,
02:05so that's the way the game is going and to get a young English player
02:12for that money, I think it's a reasonable fee.
02:17But certainly, yeah, I think it's like I said, that's the way the game is going.
02:23It has changed a little bit.
02:25It has changed a little bit, no criticism really, but it has changed a little bit from instant,
02:30I don't know whether, sorry, social media plays a part.
02:35Maybe it's always happened, but it used to happen down the pub,
02:38as I said, with the green and tucked under your arm.
02:41Yeah, but this is where it's at.
02:47Everybody has it, whether it's players or whether it's team performance,
02:51so it's part and parcel of the game and we all have to accept it,
02:55but it is instant and it is quickly judged, everything,
03:00so part of my job is obviously to make sure that we stay calm and we stay focused
03:08and we stay balanced in our opinion and we don't get too low
03:12when the performance is not exactly where we want it to be,
03:16but we reflect and review, which we do after the Portsmouth game
03:20and we don't get too high when it's a really good performance,
03:23it's quickly on to the next one and carry on in the way that we're performing and acting.

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