Nigel Adkins has expressed his excitement to getting back to match action, as Tranmere Rovers travel to Grimsby Town on Saturday 27th January (3pm kick-off).
His side’s last two games, the league match at Swindon Town and a friendly against Bootle, were both postponed due to the recent weather conditions.
ON RETURNING TO ACTION:
“You miss it, you want to play, you want to play all the time so we're really looking forward to it. We're going to Grimsby and the lads have trained well. Obviously, we've had to adapt with the weather, but nobody's found that an issue at all.
“From my point of view, the lads are in a good position. We've only got a couple of players, who are the long term injured players, who are not available for selection and everybody else is really looking forward to the weekend's game.”
ON DEALING WITH POSTPONEMENTS:
“All of a sudden, we're preparing to get on the coach to go to Swindon and the game gets called off. We were able to adapt. Well done to the ground staff, we managed to clear an area which was rock hard first thing in the morning and were able to have a good training session there.
“The Bootle game, we had a group of lads who have not been playing as much football. Instead of just having a training ground game, I think it's always better with the floodlights on, get a crowd in there, proper stadium. We managed to adapt again; we were back in [The Campus].”
ON TRANSFERS:
“I would suggest that I'm really happy with the group of players we've got. We've got 31 players, which is a large number. Everyone wants to play. As I highlighted at the very start of the transfer window, most deals are done in the last couple of days. Now from my point of view, it's making sure that we don't end up any weaker than we are now. I want to have a settled side, I want to have a competition for places, we've got that. We score goals, we’re conceding far less than we were earlier on and we're competitive in every game.
“Who knows what happens in this last week of the transfer window.”
ON GRIMSBY:
“David [Artell] is an experienced manager. He's coming in as a new manager at Grimsby, he’ll want to pose the way he wants to play. We've watched some footage of them this week, we've got scout reports on them. You see they've got an organisation; they're scoring lots of goals and they’re conceding lots of goals.
“What I do know is they're grafting, they're working hard, they're going to close down from the front and get after us. We know we're up for a very committed challenging game. We've got to do the best we can to respect the opposition but impose ourselves in the identity that we've got as a football club.”
ON TEAM NEWS:
“Luke Norris is progressing well from his ankle surgery. Hopefully we've got him back on the grass soon. Jéan Belehouan did a bit of running for the first time today, so he's progressing nicely, and Jake Leake. They are the only three players not available for the weekend.”
You can watch the manager’s pre-match interview below.