Defenders Huseyin Biler and Jack Currie and forward Aaron Cosgrave all figure in our squad for Tuesday night’s Trophy group decider at Gander Green Lane.
Cosgrave (pictured) could make his first competitive appearance for us, having joined from Lewes in the summer and loaned to National League Dover Athletic. Biler has recovered from injury, since returning from his loan at Welling United, while Currie has impressed while on loan at fellow National League South side Eastbourne Borough.
“Jack and Aaron are able to play in this competition,” said Assistant Head Coach Rob Tuvey. “They come into the squad. It’s exciting to see how they’ll get on. They’ll be playing some part of the game on Tuesday.
“Huseyin will also be involved and potentially a couple of the under-18s. We were quite young for the game at home to Crystal Palace, but this round we’ll have a good mixture of more experienced players and a few youngsters sprinkled into that as well."
Hosts Sutton sit top of the group with maximum points, having beaten Palace and Portsmouth. We are in the second qualifying position for the last 32, ahead of Palace on goal difference, with both teams on three points. Pompey are bottom and yet to pick up a point.
“It’s definitely going down to the wire in the group,” said Rob. “We know what we have to do, in terms of going through. It’s a competition at the start of the season that we wanted to do well in, with a place at Wembley at the end of it. We’ll be hoping to go through against a really strong Sutton side and put in a good performance.
“We had a really positive day on Monday, the session was superb.
“We put Guiseley to bed this morning, with our review. On reflection, I thought we played some really good football in the first half, probably our final ball was the only thing that let us down, but I thought in terms of our play we were really exciting. I thought in the second half, I felt at times we went a little more direct and probably went away from it.
“I think it’s really important, that the direction that the club want to go in, that we need players that are confident to get on the ball and want to receive the ball under pressure. At times we have to be patient, because the opposition are going to pose us different problems. Sometimes that will mean going backwards, or sideways and probing in different ways.
“We’re going to see players playing attacking football. Of course, we want to play forward football, but at times we’re going to have to recycle and be patient and try and probe in different ways. It’s important that we, as a collective, understand where we’re trying to go with this and give the players as much confidence as possible to try and execute that plan.”
You can see the full interview with Rob Tuvey below, via the link to our official YouTube channel.