Callum Reilly is relishing the opportunity to put the pain of midweek defeat at Birmingham behind him by helping Wimbledon to a landmark victory on Saturday.
The experienced midfielder came away from St Andrew’s, where he previously played for Birmingham, feeling the blues after the last-gasp defeat at Coventry, but he can’t wait for the chance to make amends against Bristol Rovers tomorrow.
“This is the good thing about having a run of games on Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday,” said Callum. “The manager has said the same in that it’s brilliant to bounce back from one game straight into another, especially after the disappointment of Tuesday night. We are back in for another game in front of our own fans and hopefully we will be ready to put in a brilliant performance for them.
“We looked at the table the other day showing where we would be if it was just based on the first-half. It’s not going to help you long-term, but it just shows what might have been if we had managed to apply ourselves a little bit better in the second-half of games. Mentally on Tuesday, I felt pretty comfortable in the second-half. They were a very good team and they had a lot of possession at home, but I didn’t feel they were cutting us open at any point until that last goal. That was the disappointing part for me in that it was one of the very few times when they actually did that to us in the game. It was disappointing, but we can only learn from it and try to take it into our next game on Saturday.”
Callum, who joined us in the summer after leaving Gillingham, added that the squad are working very hard to give the fans exactly what they want – a return to winning ways.
“I think you need a level of perspective on things and to take a look at your performances individually. The other day we were disheartened straight away after the game and it was flat in the dressing room. Heads were down, but we’ve reviewed things and looked at the good things we can take from that game and what we can do better. I can be openly honest to everyone that doesn’t see what we do on a day to day basis and say that we are so hard-working in terms of on the training pitch and off the training pitch, including classroom stuff. It’s probably one of the hardest working groups I’ve been involved with. We are trying to leave no stone unturned in trying to get a first win and to get that bit of positivity around the place.
“We’ve reviewed different aspects of Tuesday: what we can do better, what we can take from it as something to build on because we were playing against a very good team. We’ve also reviewed the other games when we’ve done well this season, including the Wycombe game when defensively as a unit we were very good. We looked at that as something we could build on and to take into another strong home performance this weekend.
“There has not been one point since I’ve been here when I’ve thought that people are putting less than 100 per cent in. It’s sometimes just maybe a little bit of naivety in spells and things we could do better, maybe a bit more quality in an attacking sense to take a bit of pressure off ourselves. We can try to get more than a 1-0 lead in certain scenarios, for example in the situation we were in on Tuesday and on Saturday against Shrewsbury. It’s just little margins that we are working on and we are constantly doing those bits in terms of individual work in midfield, defence, and attack. I am pretty sure and I’m very confident that we are going to click together and get that first win as soon as possible.”