Rooney: ‘We know where they’ll try and hurt us’

Slough FA Cup press conference - quotes from Rooney & Fensome

In his Silkmen News debut, Noah Wakefield provides the key talking points from John Rooney and Lewis Fensome at yesterday’s press conference ahead of Macclesfield’s massive FA Cup clash against Slough on Sunday. Over to you, Noah…

During such a busy run of fixtures, going an entire week without a Macclesfield game has felt awfully strange. It seems like a lifetime since the 1-1 draw at home to Scarborough.

In a desperate scramble for a Tuesday night football fix, the postponement of Macc’s away trip to Bedford took me to the Eco-Power Stadium where Doncaster Rovers were hosting Chesterfield in the Vertu Trophy (coincidentally, both teams will meet again on Saturday night having drawn one another in the FA Cup).

I figured that with Forest Green also going without a midweek fixture, seeing James Berry start for the Spirites would be the closest thing I’d get to a Silkmen game.

Slough press conference

But by Thursday afternoon, I was back at the Leasing.com Stadium where John Rooney and Lewis Fensome teamed up to face the media ahead of Sunday’s trip to Slough - the latter stepping up to captain’s duties amidst Paul Dawson’s suspension. Despite not being sat in the hotseat, Daws was sat in amongst the press and had the rather amusing job of teasing Fensome as he was getting mic’d up, with the pair having clearly formed a strong connection during the two years spent alongside each other at Macc and the six months in which their paths crossed at Lancaster City.

After Media and Marketing Assistant Will Jones fired off questions for the club interview, the floor opened to the local press. Becoming increasingly aware that Dawson was sitting directly behind me, I made the tactical decision of glancing past my question directed to Rooney about his captain’s suspension and chose to quiz him on what he identifies as Slough’s strengths.

“We’ve watched quite a bit of them, they’ve got a few good players,” he said. “I don’t want to reveal too much but we think we know where they’ll try and hurt us.

“It’ll be a tough test for us. If we look at our league games - every game throws a different challenge at us. For us staff, we’ve got to watch games back and see where they’re going to try and hurt us and how we can nullify that.”

No underestimating Slough

Even though Slough had slumped into the relegation zone and conceded more goals (39) than any other side across the National League North and South, Rooney’s response to whether the Rebels are a side to underestimate couldn’t have been clearer.

“I would never underestimate any opponent we come up against,” he said.

“The FA Cup throws mad results out and if you look at Slough - they beat Altrincham. They’ve played a team from the league above and found themselves in the Second Round with us so it’s definitely not a game [to underestimate] just by looking at their goals conceded and stuff like that.

“We’ve got to be at our best to score goals. We’ve got to make sure as staff and as players that we’re in the right frame of mind to go and score goals against them, but also to keep the back door shut and keep the ball out the back of our net.”

The impact of a busy festive schedule

An indisputably gruelling December awaits for Macc - one that involves six away trips with a home game on Boxing Day being buried amongst the chaos. The most punishing stretch will be the next week-and-a-half, with the club travelling to Slough on Sunday, King’s Lynn on Wednesday, up to South Shields on Saturday and back down to Bedford for Tuesday. When I read that list out to Fensome, all he could do was laugh: “Thanks for reminding me!” he said.

“At the end of the day, we’re paid to kick a ball around and as a kid that’s all you want to do,” he added. “We went to King’s Lynn two weeks ago, got off the bus, did a warm-up for ten minutes and got back on the bus. To anyone else it would be an absolute nightmare but with the dressing room we’ve got and the lads we’ve got, you don’t mind spending a lot of time with them. We all get on - everyone’s like a family.

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s not ideal when we’re travelling so far up and down the country but it is what it is, we’ve got to get on with it. We always say in the changing room that there’s no excuses. No matter if it’s taken you five hours to get there or if it’s taken you 20 minutes, it’s a 90 minute football match, 11v11.

“We’re on the pitch to do a job at the end of the day and that’s what we’re gonna do. We’ve got a good squad so we can rotate as we need.”

Managing Macclesfield FC programme now available to watch on the BBC

There’s no denying the level of national attention Macc are receiving at the moment, with Sunday’s clash being broadcasted on TNT Sports and the BBC having just released ‘Robbie Savage: Managing Macclesfield FC’ - an hour-long documentary following how the club navigate their way through non-league four years on from their rebirth.

“We watched [the documentary] the other day,” said Rooney. “We watched it as a club with Rob [Smethurst] on Tuesday before it came out. Macclesfield is a massive club for this level so the spotlight will always be on this club.”

And that spotlight will only intensify at 12.30pm on Sunday, in what could be Macc’s biggest game since reforming: an FA Cup Second Round clash, in the capital, backed by a sold-out contingent of Silkmen supporters. It doesn’t get much bigger than this.