Northwich Victoria

I am shifting uneasily in my chair about Sunday's F A Cup tie.

It's a match, of course, that we should win with something to spare. We have a squad of professionals, many with years of experience who should be confident of playing non-league opposition and grinding out a win. Even our front two must be feeling confident about finding a yard of space on the ground or a foot of clearance in the air to get the goals that will see us through? Let's face it, we are second in League One and this should be a canter.

Trouble is, we have to show significantly more determination and ambition than we showed at Carlisle last week. We can't afford to enter this match thinking all we need to do is turn-up and knock it about a bit. We also can't afford to play a seriously weakened team and I am not confident Parky will play a full strength side, especially with a JPT Cup game at Southampton on Wednesday and the crucial MK Dons match next week.

The fact that this match is being laid bare for the nation on ITV won't help us either, unless we take control early on. Northwich will fight tooth and nail and they will be cheered on by practically everyone in the ground. We had sold barely 200 tickets as of yesterday and clearly it's not a game that's catching the imagination since the decision to televise it. Ditto Southampton in the week.

On reflection, therefore, I suspect we are in for a torrid afternoon. I still can't envisage defeat here but suspect it might be close enough for a replay. This is a key week for our season. Progress in both of these cup competitions and a result over MK Dons would give us renewed confidence and set us up for some exciting matches in the coming months. A bad week here and we could find ourselves concentrating on trying to get back into the automatic promotion places with a squad questioning it's capability.