United manager Graham Alexander says tomorrow’s EFL Cup second round clash with Bristol City is a fantastic opportunity for his players to pit themselves against opposition from a greater level.
The Robins come to Glanford Park off the back of a positive start to the Championship season, however Alexander doesn’t want the attention to shift away from what the United players are capable of.
Speaking to The Iron PlayerHD, Alexander said: “They’re a massive club, and they’ve got very good players within their ranks. They finished the season very strongly last year, and have began the campaign reasonably well too.
“They’ll be a very competitive team. Whichever side Lee (Johnson) decides to put out, won’t have too much of an impact, because if you look through their squad, they’ve got a lot of very good players.
“It’s a great test for our players - competing against players from a higher level, and we’re looking forward to it.
“We realised on Saturday, when we concentrate on ourselves and what we can do and what we can bring to the game, we can be very competitive. We did that on Saturday, and we have to make sure we do that again tomorrow."
The Iron boss described the positive atmosphere which currently exists in the camp, an atmosphere only enhanced by Saturday’s 5-0 drubbing of Gillingham.
He said he’s got decisions to make ahead of kick off tomorrow, but stated they’re good decisions to have to make.
“Saturday was a great win, against a very good team,” he stated.
“They’re one of the fancied teams this season, so to win 5-0 was fantastic from the players. They’re all in good spirits and looking forward to tomorrow’s game.
“All of the players are desperate to play, because when you’re playing well and you’re winning games, you don’t want to games to stop."
On the injury front, Alexander revealed there’s not been much change in the condition of several players who sat out the weekend’s victory, but did have some good news regarding Duane Holmes, who was forced off early on against the Gills.
“Obviously we’ve got a couple of niggles here and there with people missing, but we’ve still a very competitive squad,” he explained.
“Duane’s (Holmes) trained after his very short illness, meaning he’s back in contention for tomorrow. So we’ve got relatively the same sort of squad as we did on Saturday.
“None of those who missed Saturday will be in the squad for tomorrow. They’ve not quite got back to the level we expect for them to be able to play in the first team, so they won’t be in the squad."
See much more from Graham Alexander and Jordan Clarke on The Iron PlayerHD.