Fra Graysons pressekonferanse på torsdag:
Beckford is a doubt for the weekend with hamstring. Wait and see until Saturday morning but if there's any doubt, he won't play.
Paddy has ruptured his Achilles tendon and had an op yesterday. No timescale on it. Surgeon said everything went to plan and now he's starting his rehab. Heartbreaking for the lad because he has been outstanding for us this season and ultimately he's missing the World Cup which is every player's ambition. Hopefully the players can look at Paddy and see that if there's any other reason needed to get promoted, we'll get promoted for Paddy. They have different motivations for getting promoted but that's certainly one. Difficult to say how long he will be out for but he's in good hands with our physio.
Neill Collins is a player I looked at when he was at Wolves and then when he went to Preston and was my first option (when Paddy got injured). Great experience of getting promoted with Sunderland and Wolves. He's a whole-hearted defender and was desperate to come to the club. Turned down a Championship club to come here and that shows the caliber of player we're trying to attract. He'll be a good acquisition.
(Talking about Sanchez Watt without naming him because he hadn't signed at the time of the press conference) - he'll be coming from a top pedigree and he's a player that we like and will give us another option. He's a player that can play in couple of different positions. He's a young player who is learning his trade and has got a great future. Played in their first team.
I'd be foolish not to sign another player because we need as many bodies as we can. It'd only take 3 or 4 injuries to scupper our plans. When the chairman gave me permission, I took the opportunity to sign a couple of players and they will help us.
Did Monday's game force you into the loan market? We've got a few injuries at the moment and I didn't want to leave myself short. I was always looking to bring Lowry back, Ben Parker has played a reserve game and he's not too far away now. With Paddy's injury, we had to get another centre-back and with other injuries we had to sign 'this other lad' (Watt).
Are you happy with the backing you've had from the chairman? Every manager would love to go out and spend £5m-£10m in every transfer window but the realism is that it doesn't happen. Every time I have asked for a player, the chairman has backed me and credit to him. I genuinely believe the group we've had for the large part of the season have been good enough and have got us to where we are at this moment in time. The loan market is there to freshen the squad up and add competition for places. While it is there, people talk about that players aren't yours and they don't try, I don't agree with that. Players have their own pride whether it's short or long term at the club. If a player doesn't try then they'll go back to their old club and not get a chance. It's and opportunity for players to enhance their reputation and play games.
Is Shane Higgs ready yet? Yeah (nods). Played in a game at the training ground on Tuesday, which we lost 2-1. Trained well and come through all the longer kicking that he did. If Shane Higgs is picked at the weekend then I'm sure he'll take the opportunity. It's good to have him back as an option again.
We didn't play as well as we could do against Millwall and there is frustration of dropping points at home. We watched the DVD on Tuesday morning but there was no finger-pointing. Players want to put right what went wrong. Frustration of the fans I can accept but we're all in this together. There is anxiety among the crowd but we're in a great position still. As it stands I believe we will still get promoted and we have to stick together as a team, as a city and as group and we will achieve that. Every other manager would love to be in our position with nine games to go, except Paul Lambert.
Norwich - it's a great game and I'd love to be playing in it myself. Opportunity to put things right and we're the underdogs for the first time this season in the league. We have to get back to what we were doing earlier in the season and against Tranmere. Chance for players put in a performance after Monday's criticism. I still feel we can catch Norwich. If we win at the weekend, we're only five points behind with eight games to go. The glass is always half full, we're trying to catch them. There's a lot of games to go and we can't get carried away with one result we have to do it on a consistent basis. Teams will drop points and it's exciting and players have to thrive on the pressure.
Toughest challenge as a manager? When I first went to Blackpool it was. This is a different type of pressure. This is a difficult time but I'm not too down. I'm frustrated by the number of points we have picked up in recent weeks but I didn't get carried away in December. It's making me even more determined to see the job through and I'm confident we'll do that.
It's a two way thing with the fans. The fans have to stay with us throughout the match but the players have to give the fans something to cheer about and we didn't do that on monday night. Hopefully we'll get back to winning ways.
Every team we play we have three or four reports on them. We know enough about teams. The coaching staff have looked at what we're doing and we genuinely believe there isn't a lot wrong with what we're doing. We're just not getting the results or the breaks. We know we're not playing well in terms of our attacking flair and not hitting the target enough. We've analysed these things and we did that when we were winning.
Is a win against Norwich more valuable because of the impact it could have? A win's a win. To win against against them would be good but other teams have gone there and won. We respect them but we believe we can get a result anywhere we go. It should be a football match, in terms of getting the ball down and playing. We're the underdogs this weekend but hopefully we'll do the right things, make the right decisions and get the right result. Norwich are the best footballing team we've faced in terms of the problems they caused us.
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I have to say, at times I thought he was totally deluded about some of the things he was saying - catching Norwich for one. The other was that he said he didn't think we were doing much wrong. Both points left me in a cross between and . That was quite worrying for me.
Judging by what he said about Higgs and how that differed from last week's press conference, I'd guess he's gonna bring Higgs back on Saturday.
"We're just not getting the results or the breaks." Det minner meg om Macca. Han pøste ut denne påstanden og ble sparket. Jeg tror at man er sin egen lykkes smed. DETTE FÃ…R VI TIL SELV MED DYKTIGHET OG PRESISJON. Ikke ved lucky breaks!
