You’re out here to work, but it’s a change of scenery from Carrington – is it sometimes good to have that, to get away and focus on the hard training?
“Our last game, Bournemouth to Leeds, is a Premier League record I think, in terms of time between games. So the gap has been as big as you can have really. I think we felt it was important to get the whole group together again, and really focus on finishing the season well. I think this is the perfect venue for that, really.”
With that Leeds game, there’s seven games until the end of the season, so are you almost looking at it as a refresh and a reset, before pushing to get that Champions League place?
“Yeah. I think the language we should be using as this club is to finish as close as we possibly can to the top. I don’t know how possible that is, but that has to be the challenge always: to get as close as we possibly can to the top. We’ve been speaking more to the players really about winning our matches, rather than thinking too much about what’s happening below. But yeah, clearly given the context, to finish in the Champions League places would be a good situation for us, but I think always we should be looking for more than that.”