Ahead of Cardiff City’s trip to Kenilworth Road, Brian Barry-Murphy spoke to the press at CCS.
Following victory on the road over AFC Wimbledon during the week, Brian reflected on the result as he eyes another important away fixture on Saturday afternoon.
“It’s a great follow-up game for us to have off the back of Wimbledon,” Brian began. “It’s a tough game in a tough environment, against a team who are very hard to play against in their own stadium.
“I’ve played that kind of a role myself, so I understand the uniqueness of it in football, so to go to that stadium against the supporters of that team is going to be a great challenge for us to produce a performance like we did on Tuesday and give ourselves a chance to win the game.”
“The most important thing for us on Tuesday was to show that we’d improved since Port Vale.
“It’s been referenced at how happy we were to get the result we did at Port Vale, and how keen we were to improve on certain aspects of the performance.
“We showed that in the game on Tuesday. We had an increased level of our performance and we’ll need improve again on Saturday to give ourselves a chance to win again against a team of Luton’s calibre.
“We believe we’re capable of doing that and over the next two days we’re doing a lot of work to respect their strengths and play as well as we can to win the game.”
Providing an injury update following Ollie Tanner’s first-half withdrawal against the Dons, Brian added: “Ollie’s damaged ligaments in his ankle and there’s a small fracture in his fibula, so we expect he’s out of action for four months.
"We’ll have a meeting with a specialist in the next few days and decide on an exact course of treatment from there.
“Perry [Ng] and Alex [Robertson] are getting closer. If not for Saturday then on Tuesday I hope they’ll be ready for selection.
"How much time they can play over those games will be assessed over the coming days, but we expect them in full training over today and tomorrow.”
Concluding, the City boss praised the terrific away support that have followed the Bluebirds so far this season, with another sold-out contingent confirmed for this weekend.
“The support has been incredible,” Brian explained. “There’s been a lot of images of the supporters watching the last-minute winner from Isaak [Davies], and our players will see all of those images because it’s very important to understand the support we have from the people of Cardiff who travel to these games.
“We make a big point of focus to see this, and with the Isaak goal it was quite funny to see them staring up the pitch, and then the reaction from so many different people of pure joy and ecstasy is the reason that we do what we do.
“It’s important for myself and the players that we understand why we’re doing what we’re doing and don’t become consumed by “Game, Game, Game” without any meaning.
“To see so many supporters so late into the game – when it could’ve been presumed that it would be another 0-0 – it pushes you on to attack.
“One of the biggest things I took from the game is that we still looked to attack right until the last minute. It would’ve been easy for us to say it’s going to be a nil-nil draw, but we want to be a team who fights until the last minute, at Port Vale to preserve a clean sheet and at Wimbledon to win, and to see so many of our supporters happy at the end was a real moment of joy for us.
“There seemed to be Cardiff City supporters from everywhere! Male and female and from all different ethnicities, and that’s very beneficial because we want to be a club that is inclusive for everybody, and the phrase ‘City As One’ is very important to be brought to life, and not just to have it as a slogan that means nothing.”