Morison: “I Love That First Goal”

Steve Morison spoke for the first time in pre-season after another two Ashley Nadesan goals secured victory away at Chertsey Town.

The Sutton Head Coach guided his players to a third win on the spin following successive triumphs over Wycombe Wanderers and AFC Wimbledon, but embarked on a different test with a first away game of pre-season at the Southern League side.

“It was a was a real tough game, one of the toughest we’ve had so far” Morison said.

“I’m pleased to come to come out with a win, it’s not our focus but I thought we huffed and puffed and there was a few chances either side first 45/60 minutes, and then obviously we made the changes to freshen it up and we took the game away from them in the end.”

“Another 90 minutes, another 60/30 in the legs another bit of work and we look forward to coming back in Thursday and getting back to the grind.”

Despite facing much different opposition compared to the opening two games of pre-season, Morison didn’t comment on any impact that may have had, but rather described the goal of working towards his own focus.

“We’re working on our our own belief system of of just of just trying to perform in our shape to the best we can all the time. I just want them to play with freedom, I honestly want them to just be enjoy playing football. I said to them at half time: I don’t feel like you’ve enjoyed that 45 minutes and they agreed and we ended up enjoying it a hell of a lot more in the second half.”

“We’re not really concerned about opposition, we’re more concerned about ourselves and today I felt it was a different test, a tough test, a lot of expectation. Obviously something that the players need to deal with at times and yeah, I’m really pleased that that we’ve uh that we’ve come through the game well.”

Overall, pre-season has been looking positive for the Head Coach, who also provided an update on two missing players so far.

“We’ve had we’ve had most people training all the time. Henry [Sandat] missed a couple of days training, he’s had a bit of a a stomach bug and Mo [Dabre] took a little bit of a knock in training the other day.”

“We’re just managing him as well and something we’ve got to manage is that we’ve got people coming from part-time to full-time” said Morison. “We got players here last year, we’ve got people at all different stages in their in their career, all different stages in pre-season. We’re managing three players back from long-term injuries as well. The main thing is time on the grass and them coming through, getting as many minutes.”

“We’re getting as much team cohesion as we can, as much camaraderie as we can and we want to just come through the games in a positive manner, which I’m really pleased that we’ve done so far. It was a real tough game, and then we’ve got a different test again against Crystal Palace on Saturday, and then obviously our greatest test of this pre-season which will be Millwall at home considering the size and the stature of where they were last season and where they’ve been over many years.”

“That’ll be a great and it’ll be a great ten days. I think we’re in a good spot and I’m really enjoying coming to work and and working with these lads and u they’re really enjoying coming as well. You see the the hard work, you see the intensity, you see the ability of the players and you see that they’re all really good good guys as well.”

Nadesan got the decisive two goals at Alwyns Lane, first getting on the end of Dillon De Silva’s square to slide the ball home before rounding Chertsey goalkeeper Luke Wynne-Roberts to seal a two-goal deficit, and having largely operated from the flank during his loan spell, has taken to his new role within the Sutton team with three goals in two games so far. On how the 31-year old has been getting on, Morison said:

“You’ll have to ask him! I love that that first goal tonight, it was electric and it was Dillon making a good decision like he did on Saturday, a good quality pass and a good quality finish and Naders showed his quality down that middle. You have to watch him on that backline because he’s got some pace.”

“He’s enjoying his football and I think that’s how you get the best out of people when you do and I think what we’re seeing here is we’ve got really good competition as well. We’re seeing people really having to perform and I think it’s really helping us.”