Aaron Cresswell is ready for the return of Barclays Premier League football this weekend.
West Ham United travel to bottom-of-the-table Leicester City looking to complete a league double and make it back-to-back wins following success against Sunderland.
Speaking at the Club’s shop signing event at the Boleyn Ground this week, Cresswell said he is raring to go.
Aaron, always nice to see the fans, particularly on school holidays and with lots of smiles on faces?
AC: “Definitely. It’s only something little for us, so it’s nice to give something back, sign a few autographs and take a few pictures.”
I guess during an international break you have a bit more time on your hands perhaps. How do you spend the time when you’re not training?
AC: “The season’s still on, so we still do the same things that we do when the games are still on. We’re training every day, preparing for Leicester on Saturday.”
Do you keep a close eye on your teammates playing around the world? Ginge was in Israel and Cheikhou in France.
AC: “Yes, I watched a bit of the Wales game the other night and speaking of Ginge he missed an absolute sitter apparently! My little brother said to me ‘did you see that?’ But I missed it.
“They’re all away on international duty and Jenks was away with England U21 as well so it’ll be nice to get them back.”
It was a great result for Wales and it must help when players come back having won games?
AC: “Definitely. They’re doing very well in their group and with a 3-0 win he’s going to come back full of confidence and feeling good about himself.”
Looking ahead to the weekend. Leicester are bottom of the league, but they’ll be scrapping for everything and in a way is that almost as tough as playing the teams nearer the top?
AC: “It’ll definitely be a tough game, especially away from home. They’re fighting against relegation and we want to finish as high as we can with eight games remaining.
“We’re going to go there full of confidence and try to get the three points.”
Is it particularly tough away from home when they’ve got the full support of their crowd?
AC: “Yes. They’ve got to try and fight to beat relegation. They’re in a tough battle and there’s still a few teams who could get sucked in, so they will want the three points. But as I say, we’re confident and we want to bring the three points back ourselves.”
How are you enjoying your football at the moment? There were lots of plaudits after the Sunderland game?
AC: “We needed the three points, first and foremost. We were on a bad run having won one game in twelve, and now we’re looking for another three points on Saturday.”
That would give us a huge boost towards the end of the season and what is a series of pretty winnable games.
AC: “Definitely. We’ve only lost two games against teams below us, so obviously it’s not an easy run-in but we’ve only got Man City of the big boys left. There’s no reason why we can’t finish higher in the league.”
There’s been a bit of talk about the Fair Play league. We’re top of that and it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that we could qualify for Europe through that. Is that something the boys are aware of?
AC: “It’s not really crossed our minds, but obviously it would be massive to get into Europe however you get there. It would be massive for the Club and the fans.”