Jack Ross intends to play a string side against Man City tonight as he continues to take the Checkatrade Trophy seriously: “I think we have managed to strike a balance between where the fixture has fallen and the other games we’ve had around it, getting players game-time and treating it properly as well. But you’re right, my message has been consistent with the players (on) how we view the competition, but I think from their perspective knowing that they’re now close to reaching the final and us playing at Wembley hopefully should raise the excitement levels as well. And also we don’t want to have worked as hard as we have done - I think it’s five games now that we’ve played in the competition - so, it’s quite a lot of games that you have to play to get to the final, so we’re now at way past the half-way point of winning those games so naturally we want to make sure that we win the next two and get to the final.”
The gaffer also gave a fitness update on Ethan Robson and Denver Hume. "Ethan will be involved with me in the squad v Man City. He hasn't played since the Checkatrade game against Carlisle in October, but he will be in the squad and will hopefully get some game time tomorrow. Denver is back training. He had joined in with little bits of training, and from this week he is back in full training again. This will be his first week back in full training after being out since the end of September, but he has looked good - fit and strong. But naturally, with being out for so long, he will have a couple of weeks at least of full training before we get him involved in games."
