Interview: The Gaffer reflects on Viaplay Cup journey

Posted on Tuesday, August 1st, 2023

Following our Viaplay Group B escapades, Manager Douglas Samuel offered his thoughts on the team’s quartet of fixtures against a brace of Championship sides, a League 1 outfit and fellow SPFL 2 opponents.

“I’m super proud on both fronts I think.  When the draw was made everybody said it was a really difficult group and rightly so.  Probably in most people’s eyes they wouldn’t have expected us to take anything from it . 

“So for us to perform in the way that we have, and to have won 6 points, I think says a lot about the character and also the quality in our dressing room but we know there’s still a bit to go in terms of still trying to improve the strength and depth of the squad so we are learning as we go right now at this level and learning against full time opposition.

“It was very, very difficult on Saturday, especially after the midweek game up in Peterhead as well, to come to Firhill and to go toe to toe. You’re not going to do that, you’ve got to be realistic.  They’re full time, they’re better players but I think our players really stuck to the game plan, showed their quality when they had the opportunity to do so.

“The big thing about the last four games is that you are taking confidence and momentum into the new season.  We’ve a home game to start the new season and hopefully we can start with a win but that will be very difficult against the bookie’s favourites.  I think we’re favourites to go down, Clyde are favourites to go up!

“We’ll find out a little bit more on day one but we’ll certainly take confidence and belief into that fixture on the back of not just this campaign but what we were able to achieve last year.  The players achieved history last year, made history last year because they are good players and more importantly they are good people.  They work hard for each other, they care about each other and you saw that on the park on Saturday by the effort they put in.”

“As a manager, I’ve always said lets see where we are at Christmas, and you can set goals then but our objective is to keep on improving.  Improving as a football club, improving as a team and I know it may sound a little bit corny but we’ll see where that takes us. 

“That winning mindset and mentality stood us in good stead during this competition but ultimately we’ve gone out and you know whilst we take a lot of positives away from it, we wanted to qualify, so, we’ll dust ourselves down, we’ll take all the positives into next week and we’ll prepare as best we can for the Clyde game.  As part of that prep, we’ve got Rangers B in the SPFL Trust Trophy at home on Tuesday night.  They keep on coming thick and fast just now!”


Next Fixture

                     
Date: 02/11/24
Opponent: Peterhead
Venue:Balmoor Stadium
Competition: SPFL 2
Kick off: 3.00pm

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