Welcome back to St. James’ Park for this evening’s game against Manchester City. We have been working hard on the training pitch all week and I can sense a real determination in the squad to kick on after the international break.
Sometimes these breaks can fall at good times, and this one probably has for us. We’ve had a lot of games recently and sometimes a little break is needed. We’ve all been back in together this week, working really hard and preparing for what will be an exciting game today.
The good thing about the international break is that we have been able to spend extra, quality time on the training ground and now we’re raring to play again. The gaffer is absolutely fantastic with the training we do, and all of the staff are excellent in how they work us and drill those fine details into us.
The more time we spend on the training pitch doing that work is so beneficial – sometimes when there’s three games a week you can miss out on that kind of training. Now, we’ve had a solid week to reset, get some good training into us, and I believe we will see the benefits.
Thank you all for your fantastic support before the break down at Brentford - it means everything and did not go unnoticed. We know as players we need to put together a run of wins, home and away.
We’ve not really had that this season. We’ve had some good performances and good wins, and now we just need that consistency. There’s no better time to start a consistent run than now after the international break, and without another one for a while.
We know what animal we are at home with the fans backing us from the start. It’s down to us as players to find the answer to winning away. We are concentrating firmly on this evening’s game at St. James’ Park, where we will do everything to win the game and go from there.
Tonight, we welcome Manchester City, who are in great form and playing well. We know we will have to defend strongly, but we also know that we’ve had some really positive games against them in recent years which have all been pretty even.
It’s going to be a huge test – but it’s one we’re up for. We’ve got a confident group and City will know that coming to our place after an international break is one of the biggest challenges they could face. It’s going to be an exciting game and we’ll need your help to get a positive result that we can take into an important period going forward.
