TT BLOG

Clive Hayward – @Byehorse

Clive blogs about Paul Wotton’s latest presser

Welcome to the latest instalment of “Tales from the David Thomas Media Suite.”

Dave was in good form as normal despite being on the receiving end of some teasing before we went into the inner sanctum. Before the weekly presser, the journos wait in the Reception area at Plainmoor. Lots of people normally pop in and out whilst doing the behind-the-scenes stuff at the football club. It’s not a massive space. There is a sofa at right-angles to the reception desk and there are always more bums than seats. When I arrived, Dave was perched on the seat of the stairlift which gives disabled access up to the Gulls Nest and the Cove. Obviously I won’t name names, but two passers-by saw him sitting there and said: “Dave, I’m not sure you need that yet, do you? (He doesn’t: he’s in rude health).

NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS?

If you’re here for the Manager’s take on “Cleanos”, you can skip this bit. But for those who actually want to read about the football, this is a quick round up of the sensible questions, which were much as we might expect:

· Paul Wotton is delighted with back-to-back clean sheets.

· He is grateful that with the sad exception of Nash Sundire he’s now got the midfield he worked hard to assemble in the summer.

· He spoke about Callum Dolan, who he described as an intelligent football player. His best role is probably a a number 10, an attacking midfielder, but he’s been playing well on the left whilst Dylan Morgan improves his fitness, and could in fact probably play anywhere, because “he knows what to do”.

· There are 10 games gone. He’s happy with the 20 points we have gathered. He doesn’t really want to start looking at the table until “16 or 17” games have gone but speaking about United’s current achievement of 2 points per game he said: “If you can get more than 92 points and win the league, I’ll shake your hand.”

· Looking forward to Saturday’s attractive-looking fixture with Dagenham and Redbridge, Wotton has huge respect for Andy Carroll’s career. On his day he is “the best striker in this league by a million miles”

· He accepted that he can be quite fiery on the touchline but said his normal football philosophy is all about staying “level”. He summed up his current mindset as: “Not purring, but not thinking we’re nowhere near it, either.”

· Sonny Fish needs to keep working on fitness- the knee he had an operation on now “feels good” but the focus is on building him up as much as possible so that when he does make his return to competitive football he has the best chance of not picking up niggling injuries. He’s “not a million miles away.”

CLEANOS

Because my Thursday colleagues are experienced journalists who normally quite rightly get some of the more obvious questions in early, it’s occasionally difficult to come up with a anything that will add anything to the occasion. Today, of course, I was able to knock it out of the park thanks to the debate which has gripped the Yellows WhatsApposphere all week. I simply had to ask Paul about “CLEANOS.”

I asked whether he had heard the term before this season, and whether he and Mikey Edwards feel the need to get involved with the youngsters’ badinage.

He took the question in the humorous way it was intended:

“I just let them get on with it. A Cleano: that sounds very Australian to me. For me it will always be a Clean Sheet, but I’m a dinosaur…the group are great, they’re funny. They don’t always know I’m listening and I just walk away laughing at a lot they say. I find them hysterical at times. I find them funnier after we’ve won: not quite as funny when we haven’t! They’re a great group. They work hard and they all get on, which I think is really important.”

So Paulo Wottono won’t be joining in with Hammy, Sammy and the rest with talk of “Cleanos”, but he’s definitely keeping his ear to the ground.