It’s about going out and doing it

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It’s Rochdale tonight in the League Cup and that brings Robbie Stockdale to Turf Moor for the first time as a manager.

Stockdale was twice caretaker manager at Sunderland during the 2017/18 season in the Championship, stepping in after the departures of Simon Grayson in November 2017 and then Chris Coleman in April 2018.

It was then that he left Sunderland after six years after which he worked as a coach for Paul Heckinbottom at Hibs and more recently, during last season, for Sam Allardyce at West Brom before, in July this year, he replaced Brian Barry-Murphy as Rochdale boss following their relegation to League Two.

Embed from Getty ImagesHaving beaten Shrewsbury in the last round, he is bringing his team to a Premier League ground, and he said of that: “You can tell that we’ve got a big game coming up. Everyone is fit and available on the pitch which is great for me, so we feel we’re in quite a positive place, and on the back of a good point at Mansfield at the weekend. That was a very hard fought point in the end, but we feel that we’re in a decent moment and everybody is looking forward to it.”

He added: “We approach the game in terms of what we do in exactly the same way. We’re consistent in our work. I believe that’s the best way to prepare for any game, so we’ve not given it any extra thought to what we would do Oldham at the weekend.

“I suppose the biggest difference is that you know what you’re up against a little bit more because of the exposure that the Premier League teams get on TV. You get exposed to what they’re doing an awful lot more than maybe what a team in our division are doing and everybody will know all the players that are on the pitch for them, so that’s the biggest difference, but we go with a really positive mindset.

“I want the players to perform to their best, I think that’s the main thing. Win, lose or draw, if we perform at our best, then there can be no complaints.

“I think it’s a slippery thing when you just say go and enjoy it because, in my experience, you only really enjoy it if you’ve played well. Now that might not be good enough on the night, we know they’ve got quality throughout their squad and they are Premier League players/ international players so we accept that, but if we don’t perform to the levels that we’ve set ourselves, certainly in the last half a dozen games, then that’ll be the disappointment so you don’t then enjoy it.

“Again, we’ve got massive respect for what Burnley are and what they do but we want to show what we do as well, and I think that’s important.”

Embed from Getty ImagesIt’s cup night at Turf Moor and that means Sean Dyche has said he’ll put out a team that is capablr of winning the game, but that will undoubtedly mean several changes to the team beaten by Arsenal at the weekend. He said we will be ready for the game and said: “In theory, although football doesn’t always work like this, we should be strong enough to win the game, but should and could go out of the window as soon as the whistle blows.

“It’s more about the players being ready to deliver and I think they will be and having that extra performance to take on the game and win, that’s what I’m looking for. I believe in all the players here, whatever side we put out will be capable of winning. Now it’s about going out and doing it.”

Dyche played at the level Rochdale are currently playing and he added: “I’ve been around the leagues a long time, and I’ve played at varying levels. I know it’s not easy to win any game, so we don’t take them lightly.

“We’ve prepared properly, some of the players have had a bit of recovery from the weekend, some have had a bit of a sharpener. We’ll do some team planning, like we do, we’ll run through our set things and we’ll be thorough in making sure the players are ready.”

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