Notts County Manager Shaun Derry spoke to the media on Thursday, ahead of our Sky Bet League 1 trip to Bristol City this weekend.
Having not had a game since the defeat to Bradford City on Sunday 28 December, Derry is looking forward to getting back into action at Ashton Gate on Saturday, saying: “We’re looking forward to the game this weekend, looking to get back and enjoy the season again.
“It’s been ideal in terms of spending a little bit of time with the family but also ideal in terms of spending more time on things on the training ground, obviously culminating in the transfer window it gives me and Greg more time to try and get some targets.”
Looking specifically at the transfer window, the Notts boss admitted that he was having to bide his time to find the right players to add to his squad and insisted that he won’t rush into bringing a host of new faces in for the sake of it.
“When you’ve got the ruling of five players that you can use, I don’t want to bring any more than five in because I don’t like the idea of any of the loanees spending time not being involved, so the right type have to be available and I have to make sure that it’s for the betterment of the club really,” he added.
“It’s early days in the window as well, which makes it difficult because it’s kind of that knock-on effect, from the Premier League into the Championship and unfortunately us guys, at the lower ends of the scale, we have to wait until they’ve done their business first.”
Bristol City go into this weekend’s game second only on goal difference in the Sky Bet League 1 table, with a game in hand on top-placed Swindon Town, and whilst he knows it will be another tough task for his side, Derry is looking forward to going head-to-head with opposite number Steve Cotterill.
“It’s always nice to come up against somebody who I’ve been in and around the game with in the past. They’re doing really well, really well, and it’s another tough afternoon for us,” said the Notts boss.
“We’ve had five or six of them in the last four or five weeks and this will be no different, I watched them on Tuesday night against Gillingham and they played exceptionally well.
“They’ve got a real, real good group, strong in depth and they’ve got some good players who are all on form, so it’ll be a difficult afternoon but, as always, we’ll go there with a gameplan and hopefully make sure we give them a game and see where it takes us.”
Subscribers can watch Shaun Derry’s pre-match media session in full on Magpie Player