First-team coach Paddy Byrne spoke to 1866+ ahead of Saturday’s away Sky Bet League Two fixture at Colchester United.
Beginning with a look back to last weekend’s 4-1 win over Newport, he said: “Our lads have been in a good place, to be honest, over the last couple of weeks. They’ve been training really hard. On the field on Saturday, we got our rewards for that.
“When you look at the four goals, four different goalscorers and two or three different assist providers. Across our flair players and midfield players, we had seven goal contributions in the game, so we’re pleased with the spread of the goals and the assists and we’re delighted for the players.”
Speaking about Will Grigg’s contract extension, he said: “When you look at Will on the pitch, he brings so much more to the team than just goals. How he creates space for players, how he brings other players into the game, how he occupies centre-halves and that high line for us that he allows us to build.
“He’s just such a clever footballer, his football IQ is so high. To be able to have someone of Griggy’s character and experience in the building, without even talking about his quality, is massive for us as a group.”
Byrne then gave an injury update. “Dylan Duffy is back running,” he said. “He’s probably been saying he’s been fit for about the last three weeks, but that’s just his love of the game and how much he wants to be on the grass.
“He’s had a tough week running, which will be good for him. We’re hoping, sort of in the next two weeks or so, that we’ll have him back in full training.
“Luke Butterfield has had his boot off, so a small step for him. The crutches are gone and the boot’s off, so he’s now walking and weight bearing, which is a big boost for him.
“For Matt Dibley-Dias, it was just a really bad injury for such a good, young player and it’s so unfortunate because Dibs is good around the building as well for such a young lad, but his is a longer process and will be more months than weeks.”
Looking ahead to Colchester, Byrne added: “Danny and Nicky Cowley set their teams up really well. The Colchester team that they’ve got now probably should have more points on the board than they, do based on the games that we’ve watched over the last number of days.
“They’ve got athleticism at the top end of the pitch, they can run, they can play long if they need to, they have players in the middle of the pitch that can handle the ball, players at the back that can help them build.
“They have a style that they can play if they want to play, they can be direct if they want to be direct and they’ll be competitive and we are under no illusions that when we go down there, we’re going to have to be good if we’re going to have to play very well if we want to take maximum points.”
Watch the full interview here.
