Josh Dacres-Cogley took time out this week to speak to the local press ahead of Monday afternoon’s festive football against Doncaster Rovers.
The defender gave us an insight into the tricky Christmas period, Boxing Day’s fixtures and how good performances breed confidence amongst the Tranmere squad.
Josh kicked off the interview by talking about how difficult the Christmas period is for any team, and how players must look after themselves across the festive season.
“It’s always a tricky period in the league season, you have to prepare well and look after yourself over Christmas so you're available to play in the games. I think any time that teams are in a state like we are in, it’s always tough, but I don’t think we are miles away - we just need to be a bit more clinical in front of goal. We’ve had a great week of training this week and hopefully that follows on into Boxing Day.
"It’s a very important period, and we’ve still got it in our hands, so we are going out to pick up as many points as possible.”
It’s a massive second half of the season for the Whites, and with 9 points at stake over the next 6 days, this could be imperative for climbing the Sky Bet League Two table.
“Particularly from some of the games where we think we could have picked up points, this will fuel our fire for the second half of the season.”
As mentioned in Micky Mellon’s pre-match interview, goals change games, and get teams wins. This is something that Rovers will be needing to add more of to their game to finish higher up the division.
“It’s a collective when we go into games, everyone wants to be involved in setting up a goalscoring chance. This helps us as we’ve got a lot of people who want to get involved and create these opportunities.
“When we went on the good run earlier this season, anyone in the team would say we just went out and expressed ourselves. However, this changes when things aren’t going your way – at times though, you need to crack on and it will come – we’re all ready to take our chance and hopefully it comes on Boxing Day.”
The saying in football that winning breeds confidence was discussed by Dacres-Cogley, and he explained his motivation to attempt to motivate his team mates, even through the tough times.
“I try and give everyone that extra percent to work hard, and when the team is winning, you don’t think about things like this. When going through a tough patch, you do need to tell each other about confidence, and we’re trying to build each other’s confidence. This is hopefully going to be massive in the second half of the season.”
Thousands of the Super White Army look to flood the ground on Boxing Day, and to get behind Micky Mellon’s side to attempt to back the lads who look to get the job done on the pitch.
“The fans are always behind us, and we always thank them. It’s never nice to go away and to get beat, or to not win when we should have won. We do thank them for their support, and we hope to repay them as they stick with us for this second part of the season.”
Josh's full interview can be watched on our YouTube channel by clicking here!