Bannan Staying Grounded

Barry Bannan isn’t letting his start against CSKA Moscow go to his head, and is simply concentrating on the reserves next match against Chelsea.

He’s not even wondering, well he’s not admitting to it in public at any rate, whether he may get a place on the bench against Stoke, all he expects is he’ll be back in the second string on Monday when they take on Chelsea at Hinckley United.

Speaking on the official site, a very happy and performance proud Bannan had a grounded take on things and some wise words for his youthful colleagues:

‘It will be different if we play against Chelsea next week – after starting on the Champions League final venue – but we have got in this position by working hard and playing well in the reserves.

‘We mustn’t get ahead of ourselves – we must remember what got us here in the first place.

‘We will probably play against Chelsea and we’ll go there and give 100 per cent.’

Turning into a regular media darling, Bannan was also full of praise for fellow wideboy Albrighton:

‘Marc did brilliantly. He took his performances from the reserves and showed he can do it on a higher stage too.

‘He certainly didn’t look out of his depth. He did fantastically well.

‘It helped that we both made our debuts in the same game. We have both come through the academy and reserves together and to make our starts for the first team was a real buzz.

‘I thought overall we battled well. We knew they would try and kill us off early – in the first 25 or 30 minutes – but we did well in that period and then we got more into the game and created a few chances.

‘Unfortunately we couldn’t take them but overall I thought we did well.’

Overall you did more than ‘well’ Barry, the performances of the youth players saved what would otherwise have been a very disappointing night. ‘Well’ doesn’t cover than, ‘did brilliantly’ is more appropriate.