Nobody’s place is safe says Alexander

Town’s 4-3 victory at Gigg Lane ended speculation over their abilities to convert chances into goals.

But Alexander won’t let his troops rest on their laurels, with Colchester United this weekend’s visitors to Highbury.

He said: “If they know anything about me, I look into everything - training, the way they recover, their general demeanour.

“If I think people are getting above their station, think they’re better than they are...

“We have to stay on top of the boys, keep supporting them.

“They have been playing well. But when you’re young you have one good game, think you’re the bees-knees and everybody loves you.

“You play half a bad game and everybody hates you and you have to keep a balance inbetween. That’s what we’ll try to instil in this squad.

“The work ethic has to be there every day. We can’t expect anything less.

“Once you cross that white line, the fans, the board, the chairman won’t accept anything less.”

Alexander is sweating on the fitness of Eggert Jonsson and Vamara Sanogo ahead of Saturday’s home game against the U’s.

He is already without Nathan Pond, likely to be sidelined for some time with an ankle injury sustained in last Saturday’s defeat at Oldham.

But the Fleetwood boss insisted there would be no move to boost cover at the back, despite Town having played three recognised full-backs at centre-half on Tuesday night.

He said: “It’s probably not going to be before Saturday. It’s a bit of dilemma for us now because we don’t know how long people are going to be out. The way we are running the club now, we are trying to produce from within.

“It might give someone from the development squad a chance to maybe be on the bench or start a game and show what they can do.

“We’re not trying to develop other people’s players. We don’t want to go down the loan route bringing five or six in and then they go back and do a good job.

“We want players to do a good job with us and stay with us.

“Until you put them in at the deep end you don’t know.

“That’s what happened with Tyler (Forbes) and Nick (Haughton) last year.

“We threw them in at the deep end and they all swam.”

Alexander dismissed concerns over the abilities of his makeshift defence, in which Stephen Jordan is the only man with a track record as a central player.

He admits conceding three at Gigg Lane was far from ideal but his players made up for their aerial shortcomings in other ways.

“There’s Conor and Danny Andrew, then we’ve got Stephen Jordan. He’s played most of his career as a left-back but I’ve played with him in the Premier League when he’s been at centre half. He’s played magnificently over the last 13 months.

“It does leave us with just one but you’ve got to see the positives – their mobility, ability one v one, ball retention.

“It’s about working with the players we’ve got and coming up with the best game plan for them – not for me, for them.

“We did that the other night.”