Press news in...

Good afternoon from a rainy Colney. We're due to have City boss Daniel Farke with us from 1pm but there may be a slight delay with lots of traffic in the areas surrounding Colney.

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DF: Stiepermann is okay. We were a bit concerned after the game but he's not too bad. It was a hit on the knee but it was just that. He trained on Tuesday and we aren't concerned for tomorrow.

DF: Rhodes has a hit on his ankle. All the players are good though.

DF: Ivo has trained all week and is available for tomorrow. Jamal was training but had a dead leg two days ago so he hasn't trained since. In addition, he missed most of pre-season so he won't be involved tomorrow.

DF: We want to have a strong squad against Stevenage but all the lads need to play. But first we are focused on this weekend.

DF: We had 23 free players on the training pitch last week. For Ben (Godfrey's) position there is lots of competition but perhaps we will see him tomorrow.

DF: It was a pretty quiet deadline day. We didn't need to do anything crazy yesterday. There was no pressure to sell players we didn't want to sell.

DF: Closing the window earlier in England is not good. All the other countries have their windows open longer.
In general, it creates a lot of pressure to be quick and all the other countries can wait. It isolates us.
We were quicker than other clubs so perhaps didn't feel this pressure. Big, big credit to Stuart Webber for that.

DF: Because we have the option to loan players and sell to European clubs, we could create some space in our squad. But there's no big, big pressure on us.

DF: A draw in an away game on the opening day is always solid. I think we were much the better side. We were better in all statistics. The only fact that I was disappointed with was conceding the two goals.

DF: We have the feeling we have more depth in the squad. In general, we are not the club that has this outstanding star. We have a tight squad with big togetherness and rely on each and every player.

DF: I was really pleased with Dennis' performance. He wanted to work and create things for the team. I was pleased with the reaction of our substitutes.

DF: West Brom are on the favourites this season. They could turn big money offers down. But with the favourites you have to prove it every week. Hull were one of the favourites last season but they struggled.

DF: They have Gayle and I'm pretty sure he will start. Phillips, Barnes, Burke as well - they have lots of options.
They struggled a bit vs Nottingham Forest but they had the quality to come back. They hit the crossbar twice late on. Perhaps we aren't the favourite in this game but we will try to be brave and bring our strengths on the pitch.

DF: It's quite difficult to start the season straight after you are relegated. Players lose confidence and some players leave, some come in. If I could choose, I would like to play this side early on. The Bolton game was a wake-up call for them. They responded against Forest. I'm pretty they'll be desperate to win because they only have one point from two games. It will be difficult but all games are difficult.

DF: It would be perfect if we can do a good performance in front of our fans tomorrow. It's a tough start for us so it would be good to start with a good home performance. With the support of our fans, hopefully we are able to do this. They backed us last week and helped us come back.

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That's enough from the Boss at Colney. We'll have plenty of reaction and build-up to tomorrow's game on our channels this afternoon and tomorrow.

Posted By: DrDublin, Aug 10, 13:48:07