Ready with a little help from my friend

Reece Cole: - “Whatever I can do to help the team, whether on the training pitch or on a match day, I’m there and I’m ready.”

Reece Cole signed for Dunfermline in July last year but after three starts in a total of nine appearances Reece now hopes that he is beginning to get into his manager’s vision. He has yet to be listed in a John Hughes’ starting eleven but at least in Saturday’s draw with Inverness he came off the bench to play his part. He told the website:-

“I wanted to help the boys out in any way possible. I was looking at the game thinking it was a perfect opportunity to come on, they were pinned in quite a bit. In the second half we had quite a lot of the ball and I thought suited my range of passing and a good game to come on in.”

After two games on the bench and then a sub appearance Reece certainly is getting closer to the action and he knows that selection is all down to excelling in friendlies and in training.

“It is always an incentive whether it is a bounce game or a league or cup game, you want to do well and impress to try and get the shirt for a Saturday.

“With a new manager coming in, it is a fresh start. I get my head down, do the best I can every day. I just hope that I have done that in the time that he has been in the door.”

The 23 year old feels that there is a role for him in the team being the type of player who likes to drop deep to get on the ball but also having the ability to stay higher to receive it:-

“I feel the formation that we are playing at the moment is perfect for me, it suits me when I can drop in and get on the ball and go forward to get shots off, create opportunities but obviously it is not all about the offensive side of the game.

“In the defensive side of the game I need to get back, get second balls, tackles in and things like that. I do think that suits me. We have got to be defensively sound, you have to keep clean sheets to win a game that is the main thing. Then from there we have to go and score goals, be more ruthless in front of goal.

“One of my key attributes is shooting so whenever I’m on the pitch that is all I’m thinking - can I get shots off, can I get crosses in the box to create opportunities.

Reece is hoping to get the opportunity to prove to the gaffer that he has something to contribute and faith can be placed in him:-

“Defensively you have still got to show that you can be trusted in that position. In the centre of the park if you are not positioned well, you are going to get caught out and that’s when you will start to concede goals. So I have got to have his trust on that one.

“Whatever I can do to help the team, whether on the training pitch or on a match day, I’m there and I’m ready.”

John Hughes has said that it has been very difficult to fit in the Englishman who started his career at Brentford because of numbers and where the team finds itself. The manager has said:-

“We have put a lot of challenges to him in terms of fitness levels and he has come up with the goods so you have to repay that.”

It has been tough claimed Reece:-

“Everyone knows what the gaffer is like, he is very focused on fitness as well as the tactical side of the game. I’m probably the fittest shape that I have been in this season. It is good and I’m just relishing the opportunities when they come.

“It is just keeping yourself as sharp as possible. I know it’s a cliche but everyone always says that you get your opportunity when you are least ready. As long as I’m doing everything I can, and I’m in the best shape possible to take that opportunity when it does come, then hopefully I take it.”

His sharpness may be maintained playing Call of Duty with keen gamers, team mates Dan Pybus and Paul Allan but with a lack of game time, Reece has not been sitting back, he has been doing extra with his former Pars favourite Joe Cardle. Reece made 25 appearances for Partick Thistle in the truncated 2019-2020 season and he revealed the role of his former Thistle team mate:-

“He has his training academy, I do a bit on the pitch and I also have phone calls with him. He is an experienced pro so it’s just little things that he suggests I do throughout the week to be ready when Saturday comes.”

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