Molesley alert to danger of relegation-threatened side Accrington
Recent signing Mark Molesley is more than aware of the kind of threat that Friday’s visitors Accrington Stanley could pose when they travel to St James Park.
With Stanley looming precariously over the drop-zone, Molesley feels that they’ll be doing their utmost to make the trip back to Lancashire with something to show for their journey. Despite the gap between the clubs in the league table, Mark is wary of the danger that can be posed by a team in desperate need of points – but is more than confident that the Grecians have the capacity to take the points.
“It’s an old cliché, but there is no easy game in this league,” explained Molesley. “If you’re not on your mettle, you won’t get the game. I’ve been at the bottom of this league, and you scrap and fight for your lives. You really want to be playing mid-table teams – you don’t want be playing teams that are scrapping for their life.
“A lot of those lower teams can put results together, and Accrington will be fighting tooth and nail. We’ve got to be ready to stand up to that test first and foremost, and then impose our game on them. We know if we play to our capabilities, we’ll win the game.”
Grecians boss Paul Tisdale was complimentary of the team performance that resulted in a 3-0 away win at the Globe Arena last weekend, and Molesley has certainly wasted no time whatsoever in establishing himself as part of that unit. An all-action display earned him plenty of plaudits, as he made an instrumental contribution to his first win in City colours.
“Saturday (against Morecambe) was an enjoyable day for everyone,” continued Mark. “It was a good team performance, and it always helps you to settle in a little bit quicker with a win. It makes you feel a little bit more part of it, as well.
“[My performance] was a probably an improvement on the first two. I was probably lacking a bit of match fitness in the first two – the games were quite scrappy and it felt a little bit frustrating and I didn’t feel as if I’d shown the real me. But on Saturday I started to feel like I was getting my own game going again, so hopefully I can use that as a stepping stone for Friday.”
Despite the recent run of results, which has seen a majority of Exeter’s points-tally being collected on the road, Molesley isn’t abashed so long as City continue their charge towards League 1. A Friday-night win against Accrington would put Exeter back into the automatic promotion places – overnight, at least – and he hopes to give the fans at the Park something to shout about.
And having encountered similar blips at home on other occasions in his career, Mark feels that the best way for the Grecians to overcome such issues is to put aside any anxieties and just concentrate doing what they do best.
“As long as you’re getting enough points on the board to get promotion, you don’t care if they come home or away.
“But don’t get me wrong – we want to be putting on a good show at home and that’s definitely an area we need to improve. And starting on Friday, we’ll be doing our best to sort that out.
“Sometimes people do make such a big issue of it, that it becomes an even bigger than it is. There are a lot of teams in our league that have better away records than they do at home.
“That’s to do with a lot of things – sometimes it’s the pressure, sometimes it’s the way teams set up against you, sometimes you don’t quite get that rub of the green. Lots of little things snowball, so we need to strip that back and get back to basics. We know that if we apply ourselves right and play our game, we’ll turn that around.”