In his own words: Phil Parkinson pre-Nottingham Forest

Ahead of the final game of the Sky Bet Championship season, manager Phil Parkinson spoke to bwfc.co.uk on what is a pivotal game in the club’s history. On Sunday, we face Nottingham Forest in a key fixture at the bottom end of the table and manager Phil Parkinson spoke to bwfc.co.uk on the following topics…

On how the lads are looking going into the weekend…

We know it is an important weekend for us. We know we still have a good chance and we have to do our bit and hope other results go our way.

All we can focus on is getting the result ourselves and hopefully a few favours are done for us elsewhere.

On injury news in the camp…

Craig Noone has done some damage to his hip, but he’s had an injection during the week and we’ll see how he is closer to kick off. He hasn’t trained yet but Craig is eager to be involved and we’ll assess him closer to the game.

On the atmosphere in training this week…

It has been good. When you lose a game with the magnitude of the Burton one, it is going to knock everybody, and I understand that, but we have to put that behind us.

We have an opportunity on Sunday, one last bite of the cherry and we have to take it.

On the visitors, Nottingham Forest…

Well Forest have been playing a 4-3-3 but they might make changes. It is more about focussing on what we feel we need to do to give ourselves the best chance of winning the game.

I firmly believe that we can pick a team capable of doing that and we need to show that enthusiasm.

Not only that, the kind of mentality if it doesn’t go our way straight away, a goal goes against us or a referee decision goes to our opponents, that we don’t let our heads drop.

We’ve got to drive through right to end of the game. Even if it’s 1-0 down with five minutes to go, we can still score two goals in the last five minutes.

Hopefully, we will be up in the game and that won’t be the case. But we have to have that mentality that we drive right to the end.

On needing unity from players, fans and everyone else involved on Sunday…

I think we’ve got to make sure that there’s not a hangover from last week with the players and I believe that has gone.

Also, with the supporters as well. We know it was a really disappointing result, but the supporters can’t come to the ground with that in mind.

We need them to come into the ground to do their bit to help us get a result in the game. Then, we’ll have the debate after that.

 

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