Striker pleased with encouraging start ahead of Morecambe trip
Going into the long trip up to Lancashire on Saturday, where Exeter will face League 2 counterparts Morecambe at the Globe Arena, striker Sam Parkin has taken a lot of heart from the early form shown by the club.
Parkin knows full well, however, that there is still plenty of distance to travel this season and feels the challenge will be to sustain their level of play over the 46 games.
“It has been an encouraging start,” said Parkin. “We’ve had three decent results and everyone is in good spirits.
“However it is a start, and that’s all it is – we know we need to maintain our level of form and we’ve certainly got enough good players in the squad that are capable of helping us to win more games than we lose.
“We were a little bit patchy at Mansfield, but we certainly deserved to win both of the home games. The first half performance on Saturday [against Wimbledon] was as good a performance that I’ve been involved with for as long as I can remember.”
The first-half showing in particular against Wimbledon was particularly dominant, and Sam feels that City’s good showing was twofold – both in performing well themselves and preventing the Dons from getting into gear.
He continued: “If we can play anywhere near the level we played at in that half, then we can be a match for anyone in this league. If we can play like that this weekend [against Morecambe] then hopefully we will come away with maximum points.
“Wimbledon are certainly no mugs – their manager seems to be wanting to introduce a decent style of football, but we really didn’t give them that opportunity in the first half.
“We got a little sloppy towards the end, but if we hadn’t got those two goals then I’m sure we could have gone up another couple of gears.”
Neither Liam Sercombe nor Scot Bennett started last weekend, but the Grecians forward has been impressed with the dependable level of ability that runs throughout the entire squad.
He picked out last weekend’s central midfield pairing as proof that there is depth in the numbers that City have, and that there are still more players as back up that are capable of stepping into the first team.
“We’ve got a good batch of young players that are either on the bench or are just missing out on the 18 at the moment. There are a few guys that I’ve been impressed with who could step up.
“And we had Matt Oakley and Matt Grimes come into the team for the first time this season last week – they came in and had such a positive impact, and that’s fantastic for the squad as a whole.
“Looking in from the outside people might think our squad is a bit thin. Certainly with Liam Sercombe and Scot Bennett missing last week we were down to smaller numbers – but for Oakley and Grimes to step up and show the quality they have was great to see.
“When Liam and Scot are both fully fit, there will be real competition in the centre of the park.”
It is the younger players in particular that have impressed Parkin for their talent. He admitted that at previous clubs some of the younger boys had really been making up the numbers of the first team, but that City’s starlets are all potentials for the first team.
“All the boys here can handle the ball – there’s quite a few that are capable of coming in and doing a job,” he concluded.
“At my last few clubs there were probably only one or two that could come in and join in with the first team and not look out of place, whereas here there is a batch of youngsters playing at a consistently high level.”