United’s first group game of this season’s EFL Trophy competition takes them Accrington on Tuesday night, with manager Paul Simpson expecting another difficult test.
“It’s going to be tough,” he told us. “I’ve been at Accrington when they’ve been in the National League, I’ve been to Accrington in League Two, I’ve watched them in League One.
“It’s never an easy place to go to. With John Coleman, he will have them fired up. They’ll look at it as an opportunity to make some money, and we’ve got to look at it as the same – that’s what I want us to do.
“We’ve got to go and put on a performance that earns the club some money by getting a result.”
And on team selection matters, he said: “It won’t be massive rotation because I think when you have a good performance and result you’ve got to try and build on that.
“We’ve got to go and try and make it two on the trot. We have an opportunity to bring some money into the club by winning on Tuesday and I want to try and do that.
“There will be a little bit of a change around to give players games and rest lads who have put it in on Saturday.
“I certainly want continuity, because I want to get on a run of results. One win doesn’t make it a brilliant season so far, it’s been a tough season. I need to see how everyone is.
“There’s been some tired bodies, and tired heads, which I would expect. There will be some changes, I’m hoping not to make wholesale changes, but I want to make some to keep everybody involved, keep everybody up to speed.
“The whole idea of having the two reserve games over the last fortnight was to get players not starting first-team games up to speed, it would be wrong of us to throw them into a game at Accrington and expect them to be up to speed without us giving them the opportunity.
“They’re all ready, some of them got back into the group on Saturday to give them a bit of a lift, and hopefully I’ll pick the right group to get a win, because that’s what’s important in this competition.”