Chris Agutter said his squad is feeling confident heading into tomorrow’s big clash with Morecambe.
The Head Coach will be looking to lead his side out of the relegation zone for the first time since arriving last month, with three wins on the spin in all competitions injecting some much-needed momentum that culminated in Wednesday night’s 2-1 victory over Eastleigh.
The U’s are now set to visit relegated side Morecambe (Saturday, 8th November) in a match that sees the bottom-placed Shrimps compete with the U’s with a similar goal in mind.
“The league table for me, with the amount of points remaining to play for, we can’t read a great deal into it” he said. “All that we’re focusing on is the nine games that we’ve been at the football club, the results and more importantly, the performances.”
“We go into the game really confident, looking forward to the challenge against a decent Morecambe side who play some very good football.”
“Winning obviously breeds confidence and with confidence, especially with the way that we play and the way that we want to play, you can’t get caught half and half, you can’t be hesitant, you’ve got to be front foot, you’ve got to be aggressive and you’ve got to be all in.”
“Having a feeling of confidence in your own individual performance, that can only help in terms of us delivering the type of football that we want to play. The game against Morecambe will be our 10th game in charge, we go into that game having lost once, having, I believe, put on the board the best run of results that Sutton United have had this season. It’s really something to build on.”
On their upcoming opponents, Morecambe are a side who have endured a chaotic summer, but are finally looking steady in regards to their off-the-pitch issues, and they will be hoping to create that steadiness on the pitch as well.
The Shrimps are a new-look side compared to last season, with Manager Ashvir Singh Johal bringing in almost 30 players in the summer in order to add to a squad that had just five players on the books when he took over, and it is therefore no surprise that they have taken time to gel, despite showing glimpses of their quality so far this term
“They’re a very different outfit, very different style of football, very different approach from the manager, which obviously has an influence on the style of football.”
“We know there’s some similarities with us in terms of they’re more possession based, they rotate very well, they’ve got a clear pattern of play and they’ve got variation within it.”
“I think it’ll be a great game for the neutral; if you’ve got a spare afternoon I’d definitely recommend going to watch Morecambe vs Sutton because I think it’s two teams that have a way of playing that are fully, fully in belief of that way of playing.“
“Morecambe, as I said, scored lots of goals, also conceded lots of goals, so we acknowledge they’re a threat, but equally we acknowledge that there’s an opportunity there for us.”
Delving further into Morecambe’s struggles off the pitch, Agutter discussed the importance of clubs such as Morecambe remaining afloat in the football pyramid.
“You don’t want to see clubs fall down the football pyramid for anything other than football reasons really” he added.
“When it’s more on the business side of things, clubs lose their way and as I said fall down the football pyramid, that’s incredibly disappointing, but as it is at Sutton United, I mean, it’s at the heart of the community, isn’t it?”
“Thank God for Morecambe as a community that their football club hasn’t slipped any further down the football pyramid, as I said, for non-footballing reasons. It’s incredibly important that from a social perspective more than anything these football clubs stay in existence and they continue to give, as I said, the community a real focus and a connection and it’s the highlight of a lot of people’s week.”
The boss also paid tribute to the travelling fans ahead of the long journey north, before going on to touch on the significance of paying respects to our fallen soldiers, with Morecambe selecting the match against Sutton as their Annual Remembrance Matchday.
“They’re magnificent. There’s always no doubt, I can’t overestimate their importance to us and I can’t overestimate or over-acknowledge how important our fan base is,” he said.
“They’ve been absolutely tremendous again and the best sort of compliment I can give our brilliant following is I’ve got no doubt that we’ll see them there tomorrow in big numbers – I’m sure we’ll see the pink hat brigade there in full voice and backing us all the way, being our 12th man.”
Agutter then concluded:
“It goes without saying. I don’t think any words from me can do any sort of justice in terms of acknowledging what people that have come before us have done in terms of giving us the society, the community, the way of living that we have today. It’s the very least we could do.”
Photo Credit: Paul Loughlin
