Jody Morris wants to turn Swindon Town into an elite environment

Jody Morris says he wants to create an elite environment at Swindon Town after being appointed the new head coach. Total Sport’s Joe Acklam spoke to Morris at his unveiling.

Morris was appointed as the successor to Scott Lindsey on 31st January, having previously spent time in various coaching roles at Chelsea and Derby County.

The 44-year-old said that he was looking to set standards from top to bottom at Swindon to help drive the club forward.

He said: “I think standards is where you start from, you want people to be accountable, you want people to be on time to work and ready to work.

“Sometimes you can be on a football pitch but you are vacant and you are not ready to take on information.

“It is about setting those standards that when you come to work, you know this is where we can all improve and not letting outside influences impact that.

“Nothing like the pitch isn’t great, or it is a bit windy today, or I am not in the mood for training.

“An elite environment for me is somewhere where everyone drives themselves and where you expect focus, preparation, practice, trying to improve, being open to criticism, doing something that you might not like as an individual but might help the team.

“Any place that I have been where you have had any level of success you have had people driving that.

“I want to be demanding of everyone, it might be the groundsman making sure that the pitch is right, the analyst giving us the right bit of information before we play a certain team, or even the people who make us food making sure that they have done it right.

“I know what that looks like and I know what it doesn’t look like, so it is just important that you set the standards and you want the players to be representing the club in the right way.”

Morris also says that he is pleased with the playing squad at Swindon, but will be looking to make them more aggressive without possession than they have been this season.

He said: “There are definitely changes that I want to make, I don’t think this team has played the way that I would like to play as far as getting after the ball and winning it back higher up the pitch.

“I don’t think that is going to happen overnight, but there is only one way to get there and that is on the training pitch.

“I don’t think that two days or even two months is long enough to know exactly what you have got.

“The change that they will have already started to see from me needs to be done gradually, because you can’t jump from playing one way from a physical aspect to where I would like us to be.

“I think there is a good base and a good platform to build on, but I think we can improve all over the pitch.”