Stroud Times sat down with Robbie Savage to talk mentality, rising expectations and whether Forest Green Rovers mesmeric start to the season has inadvertently raised the bar higher than anyone anticipated.
Ash Loveridge: It has looked in recent times that there’s been a lack of a leader, lack of somebody driving on, like in your day you were a leader – lack of a Robbie Savage out there.
Robbie Savage: “Yeah, that comes from within. You don’t need an armband to be a leader, you know, but it’s that experience of, you look at Jamie Grimes for Boston, he was a leader, so we’ve missed, listen, Jordan Moore-Taylor, the club captain, and at the start of the season when Jordy was in the team and Ryan Innis, we were top of the league. So again, we have missed them, and you know when they’re back, you know, if we can get them back for the running, it’ll be brilliant. I’m not going to say they’re going to start every game, but they will add a real boost to us and the authority and the leadership qualities they show will help the humans.”
AL: Do you think sometimes you’ve got a squad of just really nice lads and there does need to be that devilment in there? Because they seem quite a quiet bunch.
RL: They went right at it after the game when they were talking to each other, so we see that internally. But they’re all on board, you know, they’re all on board and it’s a learning curve for us all. But they want to win, they want to succeed, they want to get better. And that’s why I love working with this group. Inevitably, they want to win, and so do we. But inevitably, Ash, it’s a project, it’s a journey. I keep saying that word, and I’ve got to remind myself, because I get down, you know, when you’re waking up in the middle of the night, thinking about the game, thinking how we can get better. It hurts, it really does. And the outside noise will happen, we know that. But we’re sixth in the league. Eight points clear of the playoff places. Even if we fall out the playoff places, we know where we’re going, but we’re going to try everything we can to get in them.
AL: It was a breath-taking start to the season. Do you feel in some ways the bar was raised too high because it was a brand new squad pretty much?
RL: Yeah. And did I get carried away? Probably. Yeah. Did we all get carried away? The football’s been unbelievable. Right now, we need to try and get back to that breath-taking football, but with more defensive stability. And that comes from on the grass and that comes from the classroom, showing these lads where to be, what to do. And maybe change the dynamic a little bit, give them the freedom of the final third. We’re still with the structure, but the structure to build on from the back is what is needed now. What is needed because we’ll score, just need to try and keep a clean sheet.
AL: What did you expect at the start of the season before a ball was kicked? Has this exceeded expectations?
RS: I didn’t know what to expect because I knew the remit was we needed to build a brand new squad and try and get this football club into a position where we’ve got assets, we’ve got players who can be here for a number of years to grow with us and inevitably bring the budget down, which internally we’ve done exceptionally well and we’re doing. So again, the outside noise will always be there, but internally there’s so much alignment and we know Dale Vince, he’s magnificent, he’s such an honest and a man of good principles that he’s true to his word. That helps me because I get vulnerable, I get a little bit insecure. Of course, I think I’m a human and I don’t want to fail in anything. I never want to fail. And right now, I remember going back to Dale at the new law when we got the job. It was, go and have fun, go and be entertained, bring the smile back to people’s faces, and we’ve done that. Now it’s not so because people look at the last after Christmas. But if you look at the whole, some of the football’s been breathtaking. We’re trying to win every game we go into. Probably Boreham was the exception, we needed a point. So again, we know where we’re going and we’re going to get there, whether it’s this year, next year, the year after, we’re going to get there.
AL: The abilities are clear to see in the squad, but is it more now about the mindset getting into their heads?
RS: Oh, everything has so many parts to it. Mentality, mindset, recovery, preparation, knowledge, work in the classroom, but inevitably always work on the grass, where players need to learn, and that’s only where you get better. The way they’re coached, the information they get – we cannot give them any more information, but we’ll try and we’ll try harder and we’ll try harder until we get there.
Listen to Robbie Savage’s unabridged pre-match press conference.
