Goalkeeper looking to keep winning streak up
Following a third win on the spin against Bury last weekend, goalkeeper Christy Pym is hoping to keep that winning streak going with another three points against Dagenham on Friday.Pym, who was called into the England Under-20 squad on Thursday for a round-robin international tournament in Heerenveen next week, praised his teammates for showing their capacity in recent weeks including beating the early front-runners in the division.
However City face 19th-placed Daggers on Friday, who lie 19th in the table and are desperate to pick up points. Former Grecian Jamie Cureton leads the line for the London club, and at 39 years of age continues to find the net.
So Christy acknowledges that while confidence is high, the squad are well aware that they will have to earn anything they get from the trip to Victoria Road.
“The whole team were excellent last Saturday and you’d back Bury to win the league – so to be able to beat them and have the edge on them has proven to everyone that we’re capable of being amongst the best in this league,” said Pym.
“Hopefully we can keep the momentum going. Everyone is in good spirits and everyone is performing well. It’s not just four or five players that are playing well – it’s the whole squad. Jimmy Keohane and Tom Nichols came off the bench on Saturday and they were fantastic.
“It is a tricky league – everyone can beat each other in this league and you can’t take anything for granted. The way League 2 football is, they could pump the ball into the box and get a sloppy goal and win the game.
“We’ve got to be spot on it from the first minute to the last. Any team is a test and if they’re struggling then they’ll be even more of a test.”
“Jamie [Cureton] is a very dangerous striker to come up against. He likes to get his shots off quick and he has fantastic movement so I’ll have to be wary of him on Friday.
“I trained with the first team quite often when I was a scholar so I’ve trained with him a fair amount – I’ve done shooting drills with him and allsorts so I know him quite well.”
Manager Paul Tisdale has a few injury concerns ahead of the game, and it could be something of a depleted squad that travels to London.
And despite having to be sewn together midway through the Grecians last outing – inadvertently getting a kick in the head by Bury’s Ryan Lowe and needing patching up – Pym is not one of the injury concerns.
“I’m feeling perfectly fine – I had a few headaches earlier on in the week which was always likely to happen, but I’m fine now,” he said.
“You can never be too brave – that’s my job at the end of the day, to stop the ball going in the net. If that means getting kicked in the head, I’d do it again in a split-second.”