BGB Southern League Premier - Interview with Yate Town boss Dave Mogg (From Gazette Series)

BGB Southern League Premier - Interview with Yate Town boss Dave Mogg

9:10am Thursday 19th February 2009

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YATE Town have suffered another massive blow after it emerged that leading goalscorer Dean Griffiths is set to miss up to six weeks of action.

The striker, who has scored 12 goals this season, is currently on crutches with an ankle ligament injury and will miss a crucial part of Yate’s relegation run-in.

Manager Dave Mogg said: “He slipped kicking a football at 5-a-side where he wasn’t actively taking part.”

“It is a big blow because obviously he would have been in contention for a place on Saturday.”

Yate are currently in the relegation zone of the BGB Southern League Premier after a 3-0 home defeat at the hands of Cambridge City.

Yate let a two-goal lead slip to draw 2-2 at Rugby in Mogg’s first game in charge, but the former Hallen boss admitted after Tuesday’s poor performance that the task he faces is more difficult than he first thought.

He has already brought in former Bristol Rovers winger Ali Gibb, who played in both games, on a month’s loan from Bath City and hinted that there will be more changes.

Mogg said: “I thought it was the right thing to do to give them a couple of games to see how they would react.

“On Saturday I was full of optimism, we deserved to win the game but we didn’t.

“Now they’ve given me more food for thought on whether I can bring the right players in for the relegation battle because you need a certain type of character to get you out of the mire and there will be question marks over the personnel that is here.”

“I’m very disappointed because there was no reaction to Saturday and to be honest I think we got away lightly losing by three. Now I’ve realised what a difficult task it is going to be.”

It has been a baptism of fire for Mogg who has seen Paul Chenoweth move to Almondsbury Town and Danny Woodhall return to Hednesford Town in the last week, following Lee Jefferies out of the exit door since Richard Thompson’s controversial sacking as manager.

“Once Chenny’s made up his mind to leave there was no turning back because he wasn’t under contract and Woodhall also wasn’t under contract,” said Mogg.

“He’s gone to play for Hednesford for three times the amount of money he’s picking up here.”

Cambridge were awarded three penalties, two of which were scored, and Mogg said he’s never known that before, although he had no complaints.

He said: “It’s quite unusual, I don’t think it’s ever happened to me playing-wise but I couldn’t argue with any of them.”

Yate travel to Oxford City on Saturday desperately looking for an improvement.

“Every game is going to be tough now,” Mogg added.

“We’ve got 16 games, other results have favoured other clubs and we’ve been brought back into that little pack again.

“There are six to eight clubs in a relegation fight and we are one of them.”

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