Sky Blues under-18s are in action tomorrow night (9th November) in the second round of the FA Youth Cup, against Accrington Stanley.
The 18s will be looking to book their place in the next round against another tough opposition, when they travel to the Wham Stadium.
Results haven’t gone their way in the league so far this season, so after last weeks win away at Lincoln City in the first round, coach Andy Crabtree, is hoping that another win in this competition will help to kick start his sides campaign.
He said: “For various reasons, the league form has not been how we would have hoped and we’re just looking for it to give us a bit of an extra to kick start.
“It’s a one off game and they can go into it with a positive attitude to get something out of it and then hopefully it can then help us to produce some more positive performances in the league.
“The lads are positive they’ve trained well, we just have to keep working hard, because when you’re in the rut that we’re in, and there’s no doubt about that, it’s important that you keep digging in and working hard and working towards the philosophy and the principals of the Academy and the club, to keep driving towards getting the results what we need on the pitch.
“Like I say we’re hoping that this competition can help us kick start our season in the league.”
City will face another fellow League Two sides Academy away from home in the competition, following the 2-1 win at Sincil Bank last weekend.
Andy is expecting another difficult challenge ahead of the trip to Stanley, but is hopeful the lads can take belief from last week’s win and use it heading into the second round.
“We’ve worked hard all week gearing up for the game.
“We can take a lot from the first game last week against Lincoln, which was a great experience, having to dig in for the result.
“We can take a lot of positives and we’re looking for another positive result now heading into the second round.
“It’s under the lights at a professional ground, so the environment and setting is completely different and it can trigger good performances and results, like it did against Lincoln.
“We’re expecting a tough challenge, we expect a side that is going to ask questions of us and we need to stand up to the challenge and we’ve got to be brave in terms of getting up and challenging for the ball.
“Also when we’ve got it, we are playing the good football that we know that we can play.
“We’ve got some good players in this side and it just hasn’t worked for us in the league so it’s important we keep digging in and trying to change those results in the league.”