Manager Keith Hill wants his players to be “brave” when they face Tottenham Hotspur in their Emirates FA Cup fifth round replay at Wembley on Wednesday night.
Speaking to press ahead of the game, Hill commented: “We’ll try and play them at a game of football. I will encourage my players to be creative but focused, with intelligent energy. I think we got the balance right against Tottenham the last time we played them.
“It’s going to be a difficult game but an enjoyable opportunity and that’s what I want the players to see it as. I want them to see it as an opportunity, not to test themselves, but to go and win a game.
“They’re going to have to be brave, and if we’re brave and we get beat by four, five or six, then it’s something that me, as a coach, will accept. If we’re not too brave, then I’ll find that very difficult to digest, because I want us to take Tottenham on.”
Although the game might be at Wembley, the temporary home of Spurs, Hill says it’s important that his players aren’t drawn in by the occasion.
“It’s not a day out for us. We’re trying to do what would be an impossible task, which is play at Tottenham’s home ground and win an FA Cup replay.
“We’re trying to come up with the perfect plan, which has got to be delivered perfectly by the players. We’ve seen Premier League opposition and Champions League opposition not being able to manage it.
“But we’ve done our due diligence on Tottenham and we’ve just got to make sure that we focus on our own game plan and not get carried away by the occasion, and make sure that we focus in on the processes that we have to go through. We have to better than we were against Tottenham last weekend.”
Disappointingly, Calvin Andrew remains side lined through injury and won’t be in the squad.
“We’ve got a reduced size squad for this competition because the players we’ve got in on loan are ineligible, having played in previous rounds for their parent clubs, so we’re back to our FA Cup squad, which will involve Dan Adshead and one or two other younger players like Aaron Morley and Matty Gillam.
“Calvin Andrew won’t make the trip because he’s still not recovered from injury, which is a disappointment. But we need him back fit, rather than partially fit, so we’re going to run with the same squad that we had against Tottenham last week.”
Watch the full interview on iFollow.