Richie Wellens emphasised the importance of the basics in his pre-Grimsby press conference.
Wellens is looking for his fourth league win in a row as his side travel to Blundell Park in fine form.
The Town boss has put his side’s recent form down to the simple things done right.
“This won’t change: if we do the basics right, it becomes about us – I’m manager of quite a big club in this league, so let’s try and move the ball but we’ll do the basics and that will stand us in good stead in every game.
They’ve got threats – Wes Thomas is a good player. I’ve worked with Ben Pringle so they’ve got good quality in the team but if you’re not doing the basics right, at any level, you will struggle.
“Sometimes, if you play against opposition that are better than you, more finances, you start to think too much about how you’re going to stop someone, and it negates what you want to do.
“At the moment, we have certain things that we want to try and do, and it’s up to the opposition to try and stop us. You also have to respect what other teams do, and, in this league, a lot of the time we’re going to have to defend the second ball because the first one is the long one into the striker.
“Most teams won’t score from that, but they’ll score from the bits in and around it so we need to make sure we’re on it, because if we pick up the second balls, we can play.”
Wellens also gave an update on injuries – with Keshi Anderson missing out this week.
“I’d like a bit more experience on the pitch – Marc Richards may be fit for this weekend. Toumani Diagouraga is progressing well, and Chris Robertson is back on the grass so we’ve got some more experience which will help us all.
“Kaiyne hasn’t trained much since Saturday – we’re just trying to look after him because when you’ve been out for so long, you have these little niggles. We’ll look after him, see how he is on Friday and if he’s good to go, we’ll play him – if he’s not, we won’t risk him.”
