Countdown to Cheltenham: Teams’ Thoughts

Don’t forget that Saturday’s match kick off is delayed to 3.07pm, as a mark of respect for those that lost their lives at Hillsborough 25 years ago.

Cheltenham Town’s Assistant Manager, Neil Howarth, speaking on the CTFC site said they’re expecting a tough game:-

We played Exeter late on in the season last year and if they had won then they might have had a really good chance of getting into the play-offs but we knew we had to go down there and win to cement our place. We managed to get the win and it was a tough game but it will be equally tough this season.

They aren’t as high in the league as they were last season, like ourselves, and they would have wanted to be higher. They haven’t got the best home record either but they have got some talented players and Paul Tisdale is highly regarded in the football world and he gets his teams playing the right way.

It will certainly be difficult on Saturday.

Grecians’ boss Paul Tisdale talking to the Exeter City website said:-

It’s such an odd league this year that I don’t think we can be too clever about the number of points we need,. It sounds obvious, but we just need to get as many points as we can.

Every game is going to be an opportunity; this one is the biggest opportunity because it’s this week. Having had the disappointment two weeks ago at home against Accrington, we’d like to bounce back with this particular match against Cheltenham.

We have to fight for the three points – if we do get the three points on Saturday, we don’t walk away thinking that we’ve done it – we have to keep pushing right to the end of the season.

Paul Tisdale in the return of Jamie Cureton had this to say:-

It will be nice to see him – I hope he doesn’t play too well because we know what he is capable of. That doesn’t mean you can stop it, of course – knowing what he is capable of doesn’t necessarily mean you can negate it.

He hasn’t been starting in their side recently, but he is a threat and if he comes on for five minutes, we know we’ll have five minutes of anxiety.

Exeweb sponsored David Wheeler explained the need for positivity:-

A big part of it was trying to put a positive spin on everything. Once everyone had gotten into that mentality of being positive instead of moaning at each other or being moaned at, everyone started to make the best of the situation. That’s what made the difference – everyone was sticking together, pulling in the same direction and being positive.

On the whole we’ve had the same thing at Exeter this season too. There may have been times when we could have all helped each other out a bit more – but recently we certainly look like we’re working as a team much better, which is definitely a good sign.

So hopefully we can pick up enough points between now and the end of the season. As long as we don’t panic and don’t get drawn into being negative about the situation, we’ll be fine. Positivity is the difference.

Exeweb’s preview of the game can also be found on our frontpage.