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On The Spot16th December 1999 |
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Will Jones tackles Roy McFarland - weekly! |
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Cambridge United knocked first division side Crystal Palace out of the FA Cup last Friday night to earn a fourth round tie against fellow Division Two strugglers Wrexham. Roy McFarland discussed the game, looked forward to the weekend's visit of Oldham Athletic and answered your questions as U's Net reporter Will Jones once again put him … "On The Spot". |
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Q. A tremendous victory against Crystal Palace in
the FA Cup last week, what aspects of the game pleased you the most?
The pleasing thing was when they created a very good chance in the opening stages, they missed it. That hasn't happened to us much this season, when we make a mistake we are usually punished harshly. We have found that hard to live with a little bit. I think the fact Leon McKenzie missed that chance in the opening minutes was a big boost and I could see it lift the players and they went from strength to strength. I was delighted with all departments and the team functioned well. It has done for the last few months.
It pleased me. I told him after the game how well he had played and how he had a great debut. I think again, for him, it would have given him a lot of confidence to come in and feel comfortable with the team and how he played. We have been lacking a bit of confidence, one game won't turn it all around, but it will certainly give us a bit of a boost when we need one most. For the players and a team as a whole the team spirit has been excellent, and with Kavanagh coming in it should give us a bit of extra confidence.
It was thought out. The one thing we are getting at the moment is competition for places, which I hope will make our club a lot healthier. I would love to have as many professionals as possible competing for the same place in the first team. I love those sorts of problems, but it is a bit of a luxury for us. In dropping Neil Mustoe and Michael Kyd it could have been any one of the other players. We needed a change and I thought John Taylor coming in for Michael would give us that little bit of experience. The pleasing thing for John was that he managed to last the whole game, and seemed to get stronger as the time drew on. With Neil Mustoe it could have been Ian Ashbee or Neil Mackenzie and I had to look at the situation and make a decision. I did feel Crystal Palace were very strong in the middle of the park and putting both Paul Wanless and Ian Ashbee back into that area would counteract the palace side. I thought that happened. I thought Neil Mustoe played quite well against Bournemouth, I was pleased with his performance. I also thought about bringing David Preece back into the fray. Sadly he has had one or two niggling injuries from the start of the season and despite him feeling right about being able to play I gave Neil Mackenzie the slot. The important thing is, in a sense, that we are producing competition for places.
The pleasing thing for Wrexham is that they have been drawn at home. That is the main criteria as regards the FA Cup in my opinion. Sadly for us we have been drawn away from home, but realistically we have a very good chance of going through. We went there three weeks ago and drew 1-1 when we should have come away with the three points. We can take a lot of confidence from that and we won't have any fear going to their place. Wrexham have enjoyed the cup games they have played in recent years against Arsenal, West Ham and Middlesborough. They certainly wont be looking forward to playing Cambridge United. There is degree of disappointment that they haven't drawn a big club, and also that they know we have already been there this season and played well against them.
There may be. It is an ongoing thing so if you ask me the same question next week you will get the same answer, unless something has changed. 24 hours is a long time in football, and things can happen that quickly. It took us nearly three months before we signed Jason Kavanagh from Stoke City so there are situations that I am still working on to try and improve the squad at this football club. At this particular moment it is an ongoing situation.
We are looking forward to the game against Oldham, not just because we
have had a good cup win, but we have been playing quite consistently for
a while now. I think we will be reasonably confident.
The only one really is Andy Duncan who has his long-term injury but is making very good progress. Tom Youngs is still not what I would call 100%, but he is getting there and it will only be a matter of time before he is ready.
At the moment the groundsman and his staff have done a magnificent job over the last couple of days. If people are able to come and watch the game on Saturday it will be down to Ian Darler and his staff. The pitch was awful on Tuesday, and had we played the game we might not have been able to play here for three weeks. I have never seen the pitch like it before, and when I left on Monday night it was like a lake. The referee used common sense as the pitch was dangerous. If we do play on Saturday it will certainly be down to Ian and the ground staff for making the pitch playable.
I think it will change in the future. The Chairman and the directors have seen what may or may not happen on Friday nights. We have enjoyed the experience so far, and if we do play some more before the end of the season then so be it. We are looking for, I think, next season to play more games on Friday evenings. That is all in the future though and has to be thought about carefully. We have to, as we always do, know what our supporters like and want. They have stipulated in the past that half of them prefer Saturdays and half Friday nights. I think we have to go by their judgement. Also, from our point of view, we must look at the financial side. The Friday night games so far have proved financially better for the football club, the supporters have enjoyed it, the players have enjoyed it and I prefer it because I think it creates a great atmosphere. Whether that does happen more in the future has got to be up to the fans.
YOUR questions to RoyQ. Colin Proctor of the Vice Presidents Club asks: Why as a chosen member of this century's England's football team, being a great centre half, have you never gone for an experienced centre back which many of us think is all the team lacks? Mr Proctor if you can tell me one then please do, and I will go and look at him. If we can afford him or his wages then I will let you know. I have had plenty of offers from centre-halves but they have all been young players at big clubs without any experience and I am not prepared to take the gamble. I would love an experienced centre-half to come and play here. I have been looking for one since the start of the season, and thought I had one at the start of the season but we lost him. I have had several players from abroad and I have had a 6ft 7" player from Zaire who was not good enough. So Mr Proctor if you want to be our scout and go out and find one for us then you can do that with pleasure.
I do. I usually start the game in the stand to have a look at our shape and how we are doing. I rushed down against Crystal Palace after five minutes because I saw Ash holding his hamstring. When I got back down to the bottom I was too tired to go back up! By that time I had seen McKenzie miss his chance and our players grow in confidence and decided to stay there. I tend not to go into the stands away from home. Maybe the fact we haven't won away from home yet this season means it is a good suggestion for me do it.
Don't ever accuse my players of going through the motions. They go through emotions, but never through the motions. I am disgusted by anybody suggesting that, and certainly the players would be. Sometimes the players haven't played very well, but unless you have played the game at any level and realised the tension, fear and responsibility then it is very hard to explain, sometimes, why players look on occasions that they are not trying. Let me assure you that any player who puts on a Cambridge United shirt will be doing his utmost and best. How he performs is a different matter as all sorts of things come up. One of the biggest things is confidence, and when you are short of it many players don't want the responsibility of having the ball. I think we have performed in the league as we did against Crystal Palace, but we have been punished. Goals change games, and give you confidence. We have lost goals at certain times in the league that have been soul destroying and certain players have lost confidence because of that. I would say that even in our good spell over the last six weeks we have dropped points for making elementary mistakes. I think, in terms of the Crystal Palace game of the chance McKenzie missed after a few minutes. If that had been in the league they would have stuck it away, and it would have been interesting if they had scored to have seen how we would have reacted to the rest of the game.
Yes, they have left the club. Larry and Dean were super lads, and I wish they would have been signed on. They were cracking kids, but both were a bit short of the ability needed to play in our first team. It is not worth wasting their time, and they need to decide what they are going to do for the rest of their lives. We have tried to find both of those players another football club as best we can. Those two boys were super when they were here, and they are welcome to come back any time. They can walk into our dressing room any time as they were great guys.
The first thing I wanted to get involved in was coaching. I took my full badge in he later stages of my career and realised I was coming to an end so decided to get myself a little bit more involved in the coaching side. Near the end of my career I was offered a job at Bradford as player-manager. Before I started the job I took a management course through the PFA. I tried to prepare myself for management and coaching before I took the big step. George Graham - we know where he has progressed in league football as regards management - and I were like partners and pals when we took the management course together. We had lots of discussions and it was a very interesting week listening to different aspects of football that sometimes players just don't get to understand. That is how I took the job at Bradford as I prepared myself and it was a great help to me when I started the job in 1981.
As ever, we would like to thank Graham Eales for the opportunity to put these questions to Roy McFarland, and the manager for his co-operation. If you have any comments about this regular feature, either for Will or myself or for Roy or Graham, please use this e-mail address: feedback@cambridgeunited.com
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you would like to have your question asked next week, please follow this
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I
think we have been playing well over the last few weeks, and the injured
players are starting to come back to create real competition. Alex Russell
(right) is getting stronger and I would have started with Alex against
Barnet and it would have been good for him to get that game under his
belt. Sadly the Barnet game was cancelled, but his progress has been very
good in training and he hasn't suffered any adverse reactions.
