Matt Taylor is excited about the start of the 2024/25 League One season and is aiming to build and improve upon the previous campaign.
The Pirates host Northampton Town at The Memorial Stadium for their season opener, attempting to claim an important win in a busy August where Rovers play six times in three different competitions.
The Gas have had a productive pre-season, winning five of their seven outings in front of fans and making 12 additions to bolster the squad.
Manger Taylor was upbeat about Rovers’ chances of a successful campaign and reflected well on the pre-season preparations.
The boss also talked about the game against Northampton, injury news and the final weeks of the transfer window.
AMBITIONS FOR THE SEASON
“I’m hoping for progression, improvement, can we start to move towards the top half of this league? Something that’s not been achieved for such a long time, I think it's over 25 years since we finished above eleventh in League One.
“We want to be competitive week in week out. The league's incredible this season, I think there’s ex-Premier League teams and then countless other teams with incredible strength and resources in different ways, we’re just happy to be part of it.
"We want to get an identity of this football team out on show for our fans more than anyone else and then build on that and build on a positive platform that we seem to have right now.
“We’re building towards something with so many new players and so many young players. It will take time and they’ll be some inconsistencies in there, but I’m sure there’s excitement about what we might be able to achieve further down the line.”
REFLECTING ON PRE-SEASON
“You always want it to be dead on the dot and perfect going into the first game of the season. It’s unrealistic to expect that especially with the changes we had in the off season and throughout the pre-season as well.
“The big thing that we touched upon was the availability, fitness and intent of the group, which I’m pleased with all of those aspects. Now we have to put it into a real game scenario.
“But also, an understanding that as much as we’ll reflect on the previous five and a half weeks, this week has been about building into the league campaign and getting the boys ready for Northampton, and what a test it’ll be.
"It’s a privilege to walk out in front of a full house this weekend on TV, a good game of football, a good opposition, and if they’re on the pitch they’ve earnt the right to be there and they need to find a way to enjoy it despite probably a little bit of pressure going into it.”
NORTHAMPTON TOWN TEST
“I think there is probably a little bit of unknown from ourselves in what to expect and certainly in the opposition for the first few games of the season. You try and get patterns and trends but as much as we possibly can, we’ll focus on our principles as opposed to the opposition.
“Make them [the players] aware of certain dangers, certain moments in the game and certain personnel, but just get them to concentrate on what we’re good at and hopefully if they can implement that, we’ll have a good chance of winning the game.”
INJURY NEWS:
“Ruel [Sotiriou] is close, it's yet to be decided if he’ll feature this weekend. He’s done a bit of training, if he does feature it'll be in a really small part and limited minutes. But if he doesn’t feature this weekend then he has a real chance for Tuesday and obviously the following weekend.
“He’s very close and we’ll probably wait until the last minute to make a decision on that one.
“Unfortunately, Jack Hunt picked up a hamstring strain on the back of some post-game running last weekend which is a strange one for a manager, but that’s just unfortunate. [He is] not out for a long period of time but just rules him out for this weekend.”
LAST WEEKS OF THE TRANSFER WINDOW:
“We’re not finished yet, both sides of it, players coming in and players going out. I think there is still work to be done, there’s areas in the squad to strengthen and as always in terms of a window it comes to an end. It's quite an abrupt end and an exciting one and a dramatic one.
“But we’ve done so much work previous to the next few weeks so the next few weeks will hopefully be a little bit more relaxed, but we are still in the market and looking to do business.”
