Cheltenham Town forward Luke Varney will have a new strike partner at Port Vale on Saturday.
Loanee Tyrone Barnett cannot play against his parent club, so boss Michael Duff will choose between Sam Jones, Alex Addai and Kelsey Mooney to take his place.
Here Varney looks ahead to the trip to Vale Park and gives up an update on the injury with which he has been playing for several weeks...
How much does last week's injury time winner against Grimsby Town help with a week of training ahead of Port Vale?
Obviously it’s always good to come off the back of a result like that, especially with the manner it came. We feel we are in a good vein at the moment. The two defeats we had before that could have dented our confidence, but after some good results in the last couple of months or so, we feel we are in a good position to go forward into this run of games against teams who are in and around us. It’s an important period for us and that late goal can only help us.
The manager says you have "turned a bit of a corner". In terms of where you were, how dramatic a transformation has this been?
If you think about it, the back-to-back games we won at Notts County and against Newport took us out of the relegation zone and we are now looking at winning a couple back-to-back again to get right into the pack. Back-to-back wins are so important in any league, especially with us being down there. We always wanted to get up the league, obviously, and we had a lot of meetings about we thought we could do it. We feel we have found a way to achieve that now, all pulling in the right direction and a lot of work on the training ground has gone in and it’s starting to pay dividends.
You’ll be familiar with Vale Park, having played in that neck of the woods for Crewe Alexandra
It’s a big pitch, that’s about all I can remember! No, I had a couple of derby games there when I was at Crewe and we understand it’s going to be another tough game. They are in a position where they still need to win games as well so it’s going to be another tough afternoon, but looking back at a good performance at Notts County and learning from the Bury and Accrington games, hopefully we can take our home form into Saturday.
There will be no Tyrone Barnett so how does that change things alongside you?
We haven’t gone through the team yet, but Jonesey (Sam Jones) came on and made a big impact against Grimsby, Alex (Addai) has really come to the fore and Kelsey (Mooney) is ready to come in as well, so we have competition up there and we have a formation now the lads are buying in to. When I think back to good teams I’ve played for in the past, it’s good to have a set XI, but the best teams have always had impact subs and last Saturday we definitely had that, so it’s great for us going forward.
You have four goals in 10 games and your goals have come in pairs so far.
I wouldn’t say I’ve been disappointed, but I’d like to have scored a few more. I am enjoying my time here and working as hard to add much as I can to the team. Hopefully it’s not just my goals we are relying on and I am delighted to be playing games and that results are going in the right direction.
You had a niggle going into the Notts County game, has it cleared up now?
The pain has reduced for sure and I have offloaded a bit of the training, but it’s not a case of it being 100 per cent. We have spoken about maybe having another injection in the future if it doesn’t ease off completely and maybe a little tidy up in the summer, but it’s not stopping me now. I am starting to feel comfortable on the pitch.
With so many games coming up, do you feel you’ll have to be managed?
Maybe, yes. I think we all will. We’ve had a lot of games leading up to Christmas too. The gaffer will understand that Christmas periods are quite a heavy load on the players and we have shown we can play these games, but you need to be looked after in training and the gaffer has been good with that. We have talked about getting as many points as possible from these games because you can really climb the league and being fresh is important going into them.
Will your role change depending on who plays alongside you up front?
Playing with Jonah at Oldham ended in unfortunate circumstances with his sending off, but I enjoyed playing with him as I do with Ty. With Alex, I have trained with him and you have to let him go really as he’s a box of tricks and is so dynamic. Whichever one it is, and it could be Jonah and Alex, with me as back up, we have a formation and lads ready to come into it.
In terms of the confidence, have you noticed a big difference after the last two results?
Yes, I personally think we didn’t play too well on Saturday, but we still came out with a positive result. There have been a few games when things have happened for us late on. That’s testament to the gaffer and the lads going until the final whistle. If we all stick together it shows we can really make an impact.
