United face Sutton United knowing that last season’s league newcomers have set themselves up as a bit of a bogey team for the Blues, with two wins from two meetings between the clubs for the weekend’s visitors thus far.
“It’s a big game and a really good one to look forward to as far as I’m concerned,” manager Paul Simpson said. “They’ve had a more difficult start to this season than they did last year.
“They had a fantastic first season up in the league finishing just outside the play-offs. They were a real handful and I’m sure that won’t have changed.
“They’ll be looking to get back to the form they showed last season and they had a good win at home in their last league fixture. I’m sure they’ll be looking to carry that on so that they can build some momentum.”
“As we know for every game, we’ve got to be right,” he commented. “We’ve got ourselves into a good position in the league and every game presents an opportunity for us to cement our place up there, and maybe even nick ourselves a couple of other places as well.
“And it’s not about allowing any kind of hangover from us from last weekend. We haven’t got any time for that, there’s no point worrying about it.
“We can’t change the fact we’re out of the cup. If you have a bad result in the league you have another opportunity to address it in the next game, except for after game 46.
“Saturday is a real chance for us to put the cup to bed, and we’re now in a situation where we know we don’t have to worry about any cup competitions this year.
“Don’t get me wrong, on the one side that’s really disappointing, but on the other side we have to take it as a positive that we must use for our league form.”
On what we can expect from the away team, he said: “Sutton have a way that they play that is very effective, if you allow it to be.
“Their manager has them playing well and let’s not forget they’re a good footballing team. They can also mix it up by getting after it, and I’d never knock anybody for the way they play, particularly if it’s done well.
“It probably hasn’t been as effective this season and we have to make sure that we deal with all of their threats so that we’re not looking at another difficult afternoon.
“We have to play our way and we do that by starting the game properly, being on the front foot and by locking onto players and being competitive.
“Hopefully our own way of playing comes to the fore because we’ve done all of those things properly.”
“What we have to remind ourselves of constantly is that our position in the table speaks for itself in terms of how we’ve gone about things so far,” he concluded. “We’ve had some really good results, home and away, and we need to carry that on.
“I want us to get back to being really hard to get goals against us. I want us to be strong physically when we’re defending, and I want us to be really creative and clinical when we get into the final third.
“This is a good opportunity for us to continue doing that. Hopefully we’ll get good backing from our supporters and we’ll be back on the bike again.”