Greg Abbott On The Orient Game

Last updated : 20 August 2006 By Thetashkentterror

United assistant manager Greg Abbott spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's Derek Lacey on Saturday evening as he gave his opinion on the excellent 3-1 victory at home to Leyton Orient. Abbott talking about the way the team have bounced back from the Yeovil defeat, and the penalty taking situation at the club :


" It was a smashing response to last week, we were very disappointed last week because I said before the game that we thought we played some great stuff last week. We carved out a lot of goalscoring opportunities and today we have done exactly the same, probably better, and we've scored some wonderful goals.

" The penalty miss isn't a time to start criticising but we are looking at high standards here, Michael Bridges is the penalty taker and we wanted Michael Bridges to take it but Gally (Kevin Gall) wanted his hat-trick. We can fall out over that though in the dressing room, and we have done, 4-0 is better than 3-1 though and that is how quickly football changes, it's a little bit of a nit-pick from the management team but apart from that Gally was brilliant and scored two fantastic goals.

" We got some hard work out of the lads over the 90 minutes, his first goal was magnificent, (Michael) Bridges picked him out with a pearling pass again the same as last week, he must be his best pal because that's two in two. We need Gally in there because he has got that little bit of pace, he can get in behind defenders and he has gone in and done exactly the job that we wanted him to and that we have been talking about all week, it's terrific for Kevin.

" Michael is playing some smashing football but he needs a goal, that's why we go back to the penalty again but let's put that to bed for now. We can talk about that again and in different situations we might get penalised, but we didn't today, we've gone out and won the game 3-1. After they scored their goal there was a little period in the game where we were on the back foot a little bit, we lost our momentum, at 4-0 I think they would have just given up and we'd have run out comfortable winners. "



" It's too early to say if we are a force to be reckoned with, we just want to keep getting results even if that might be boring. We are enthusiastic, we are young positive managers and coaches, and we say it how we see it, I thought the boys were terrific today, I thought last week there was not a lot wrong with the performance although the result was a bit of a blow. We're going to be positive all the way through and that is what we have led them with all through the week, and they have responded today with a magnificent performance, and we're nit-picking a little bit to find any faults in it at all really.

" I'm not sure what the thing was, he (Kevin Gray) couldn't breathe, he was struggling to breathe and obviously I thought it was maybe an illness, obviously the game was going on and we didn't know what was happening. We just knew he was in a bit of pain and was trying to get his breath, the big man is big for us though, he's a really positive character, let's just hope it's not bad as people might think. Rib injuries take ages by the way, they are very, very painful so let's hope it's not that.

" We have a gameplan, and if there had been height there then we might have moved Ziggy (Zigor Aranalde) into the middle of the back four because he can cope with that and he is 6'2. David Raven up against (Gary) Alexander and (Lee) Steele was OK because height-wise he didn't have a problem, and I thought he was magnificent when he went in there by the way.

" Bradford on Tuesday is another match we want to win. The manager (Neil McDonald) did say that he thought three games in a week was a lot to play so he might make a couple of changes, if he is going to make them then they might be on Tuesday night. I can't talk for him though, he makes the decisions and he'll let us know in due course. "