Fleetwood Town’s Ashley Eastham has told Fleetwood Today that he wants the team to make their win over Sunderland the standard going into next season.
In their first season under controversial head coach Joey Barton, the Cod Army can be pleased with what they achieved. They finished 11th in Sky Bet League One and were 12 points off 6th place Doncaster Rovers. While this is not the most spectacular position in the league, it was a solid one for Fleetwood and they will want to build on it going into next season.
But one game that Eastham thought showed they were capable of something special was their 2-1 win over Sunderland. In the penultimate match of the season, the Lancashire club were able to come from behind to win the game thanks to goals from Paddy Madden and Eastham himself, the defender scoring in the final minute of the match. He has said it showed the performances this team were capable of and that they need to replicate that more often next season.
He said: “With the squad we have got, we have got a lot of youth; a lot of lads who have not got a lot of Football League appearances across the board.”
“Results like that show them that anything is possible in League One.”
“They have the biggest budget in the league; they were favourites at the start to go up and they had hopes of automatic promotion, so what tougher challenge could we have had than that?”
“It is massive for this club going forward. We just have to go forward and build a consistency to that.”
“We need to make sure we are at it week in week out.”
“That is what the manager (Joey Barton) wants to drive forward.”
“Even on your off-days you need to be collecting points from games.”
“We sent the fans away in good spirits and good hopes and we will all be motivated and ready to go again come pre-season.”
