Daniel Leadbitter says he never entertained any thoughts that he may have made the wrong decision to join Bristol Rovers following a difficult start to life at the Memorial Stadium. Leadbitter was earmarked as a like-for-like replacement for Michael Smith when he arrived in the summer off the back of an impressive campaign at Hereford United last season. The former Newcastle United trainee, however, struggled to make the vacant right-back spot his own and has lost out to Tom Lockyer for the majority of a season in which he has made only 13 appearances. When asked whether he had ever felt whether he had made a mistake in joining Rovers, Leadbitter, who has earned a recent reprieve after featuring in all of the last five games, replied: "No. Not at all. Whichever way you look at it, coming to Bristol Rovers was a great opportunity for me in the summer and it is still a great opportunity for me now. Sometimes you can hit the ground running when you join a new club, but at other times you may need a period of time to settle into new surroundings. I came here to play regular football and not being in the team from week-to-week is something I have had to get my head around after playing in every game (for Hereford) last year. Sometimes I was chopped even after I felt I had played well and I can't say that I didn't feel a bit rejected by that at first. I didn't fully understand how the gaffer worked in terms of looking at each game as a separate project because it is a different way of working to some of the other managers I have played for. I want to play every game and I always backed myself to win over the manager if he didn't think I was good enough, but he told me that if I wasn't in the team I shouldn't take it personally. The good thing here is that the manager makes sure that everyone feels involved whether they are playing or not and I feel like I am adapting to the situation now. I understand my role in the squad and I know I have to be ready for whenever I get the nod to come in from the gaffer because those chances can come at any time." Leadbitter, meanwhile, will hope to have done enough to retain his place in the side after offering up another steady performance as Rovers claimed a 2-2 draw with Dartford on a quagmire of a pitch on Saturday. He said: "We got word that it wasn't going to be the best conditions before the game, but we didn't realise how bad it was going to be until we actually turned up. We were given the option to do our pre-match warm-up on the Astroturf outside the stadium, which was probably an early warning that the pitch was going to cut up early doors. I thought we did well to adapt to those conditions during the early part of the game, but the more the pitch cut up, the more we struggled to play our stuff as the afternoon went on. It was definitely two points dropped and the gaffer made it clear to us that we need to win those types of games if we are to have a chance of winning the league." Taken from the Post.
