Checking into the Gaffers thoughts

After 2 weekends in which Central only played 45 minutes of football due to one game being abandoned halfway through, and another being cancelled the night before, it felt like a good time to have a catchup with the Gaffer. To no surprise, the hot topic was this weekends massive cup semi final tie against a familiar foe, Heyside.

The first thing we wanted to find out was how much the lads are looking forward to this weekend. Cup semi finals are not something you get to play in every season, or for some players, ever. Therefore, Chris made sure he gave credit to his team for what they have achieved already.

"We are absolutely looking forward to it, getting to a cup semi final at any level is a fantastic achievement but it will be another tough game which the last two rounds have shown too. So whoever gets to a final you'll have done very well to get there, beating some very strong sides."

Following on, we were intrigued as to whether Tommo thought it was a bad time for such a big tie due to the lack of match time in recent weeks. But, he put emphasis on the fact that this shouldn't be a problem in a game of this stature.

"It shouldn't make a difference to be fair, the lads should be ready to go, if you can't get up for a cup semi final there is something wrong. Our last performance was brilliant, as I said before it's the best we have played in a long while so hopefully we can continue that this weekend."

Speaking of their last performance, we then wanted to know how Chris and the other management staff try to make sure they can get the team to tick as well as they did for 45 minutes against Bolton United, where they led 3-0 before the game was abandoned. Therefore, Chris highlights that although the 3 goals did not lead to 3 points, they can take lots of confidence from that game, into this weekend.

"It was a brilliant performance last time out and the lads should take a lot of confidence from that. And they have seen that's the standard to keep now, so hopefully they can and I'm sure they can do that as long as they play how we all know they can."

Now onto Heyside. The 2 sides have had some fantastic ties over the years including a 5-2 Central Victory and most recently, a 5-4 Central Victory in which Heyside led 4-2, before a 93rd minute Josh Frith winner wrapped up an incredible Central comeback. Both of which can be watched in a recent post on twitter. However, the sides haven't met since 2019 and will be relishing another clash with such high stakes. But, Heyside currently sit second to bottom of the Premier Division, winning 1 out of 10 games. Therefore, we wanted to know if Chris saw this is a good opportunity to make the final or if you should never look at a game in that way.

"Cup games are different aren't they, form goes out of the window. As I said before, getting to this stage you must be a decent side as their was some really good sides in the cup, so no we just have to concentrate on what we do best and not worry about other teams form. We know it will be a tough game and hopefully we can come out on top if we play how we know we can."

And lastly, having not seen the lads play much recently, we wanted to know how they have been in training recently, and if they're fired up and ready for a massive 90 minutes.

"Training the last 3 weeks has been fantastic to be honest, numbers have been brilliant, we have seen a change in mentality a bit recently and that has been a huge a huge plus! Lads know they have to fight for their place now and if they don't train, or don't train well, they don't automatically start and it's a brilliant place to be in all honesty."

Hopefully Central can carry that form into this weekends cup semi final and continue to leave all of the management staff with selection headaches.