Anthony Johnson spoke to Moors TV earlier this week and reflected on his time at the club so far and the challenge Guiseley pose ahead of this weekend’s National League North meeting.
“It’s been a whirlwind with five games in 18 days, meeting all of the people at the football club, meeting new people for us, trying to remember who’s who, trying to give ample time to the players to give their input.
“Managers talk about a clean slate and we’re trying to do that with and play but with the amount of games we’ve had, we’ve not really been able to analyse players in training.
“We’ve not really had time to sit down and take a deep breath yet but these next few weeks will allow us to look back at the games and see what we could have done better.
“It’s about making sure that what we execute in the training ground is followed up in the games but that is what this week is going to be about, reflecting on that period.
“The way the lads have gotten through the games in the manner that they’ve done has been very good with the amount of games and the amount of commitment.
“We’ve had copious amounts of Covid cases and a few injuries since we’ve walked through the door, so we haven’t had the full squad to work at the moment
“It’s been tough in terms of the games played but the lads have shown enough to give us that real belief that we can go on and do something good this season that’s even without potential incomings.
“The way the lads have gotten through the games in the manner that they’ve done has been very good with the amount of games and the amount of commitment.”
“When I look back at all of the games so far in isolation, the Darlington game with 10 men really showed that the lads can be hard to beat, that despite being up against it they showed resilience.
“The Blyth game I thought it was one of those games where it almost looked like as a group we just had to turn up to win and it took us up until half-time to get into the dressing room to relight that fire inside us.
“It was the opposite to what we talked about in the Darlington game. We were a little bit weak when defending the set-pieces after getting back into the game.
“Out of the three games we’ve came from behind in two of them so I think we’ve shown a really strong mentality however on the flip side we’ve shown we can switch off when we’re not concentrating so there’s lots of work to do with the existing group from the three games.
“It’s about getting the fundamentals right in training, stopping shots like we should have done better away at Darlington and picking up our man.
“If we get those things right we’re going to be alright but otherwise we will continue to concede sloppy goals which never ever gives you that chance.
“Despite Guiseley’s current league position, they’ve been very resilient and don’t concede many goals, they don’t necessarily score many either but that’s because they don’t commit many bodies forward.
“They’re going to set up to be hard to beat and being organised so they’ll be hoping for a last chances or opportunities, we’re going to do the opposite to that, we’ll try to play aggressively, commit bodies and cause a bit of chaos in that final third.
“They’re a really solid side, they’ve got some really experienced players in there, they have some quality through the team and some young and hungry players.
“It’s going to be a tough game but you rarely hear the opposite of that in this league, you could lose or drop points but from my point of view we have got to be confident, aggressive and we’ve got to believe that any team that comes to our place we’ve got to be on the front foot and causing them some real problems.”
