Fleetwood Town midfielder is in the hunt for a starting spot

The midfielder spearheaded a much-improved second-half display in Tuesday’s 3-1 defeat at Milton Keynes Dons, scoring Town’s late consolation goal.

The 28-year-old missed the start of the campaign with a suspension carried over from last season, when he was an Accrington Stanley player, but became a regular in Joey Barton’s side for two months before Christmas.

Finley replaced Paul Coutts for the second half at Stadium MK, his first appearance for more than a month, and certainly caught the eye of new boss Simon Wiles.

Town’s interim head coach said: “I’ve been really pleased with Sam. He’s had two or three training sessions back with us now and you know what you’ll get with Sam, the hard work and energy, and he has the creativity too on the ball.

“He scored an absolute screamer, which gets him into a really good position for selection moving forward, so I’m really delighted with the impact he has made.”

Wiles knew changes had to be made after Joe Mason’s first-half hat-trick left Town with a mountain to climb in midweek – and the Town boss revealed he wasn’t the only one with plenty to say during the interval.

He added: “With the experienced players, they know that wasn’t good enough and you give them the voice (in the dressing room).

“They problem-solve and get things working, and then I’ll come in and speak about the key details, which were the individual mistakes and the need to improve our decision making.

“When we did win the ball back in transition, we needed to keep it to start creating.

“There were a few voices at half-time but it needed to be said and we got the response we wanted – we just didn’t get the result again.

“That comes down to the training ground now, and we’ve got to work hard and start being more ruthless in front of goal.”

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