Head coach Joey Barton spoke to the press ahead of his side’s Emirates FA Cup first round tie against Hull City at KCOM Stadium on Saturday.
The Cod Army head into the first-round cup tie on the back of a narrow loss against Charlton Athletic at The Valley, with the side looking to replicate the run they went on last season all over again.
Joey Barton’s side have already faced The Tigers already this season in the league and walked away 4-1 winners, after a Harvey Saunders brace and goals from summer signings Callum Camps and Sam Stubbs.
Ahead of the game, this is what Joey had to say:
On the Tigers…
“It’s the FA Cup, let’s go and have it. We’ll be ready to go. Obviously, we neat them last time out not long ago in a certain manner and they will hopefully get the same on Saturday. For me, it’s a tie on a lovely pitch in a great stadium. We have to go there at some point in the league but have already managed to beat them at home.
“We don’t need to over complicate it, they’ll probably have Tom Eaves in, Mallik Wilks back out wide and Josh Magennis maybe will play. We expect it to be 4-3-3, it’s the way they’ve played all year and have been successful in most of them.
“I don’t think they will want to change too much for us and will probably want to right the wrongs of what happened at our stadium a few weeks back but we will be going there to win a cup tie full of confidence and hopefully pick up where we left off in the home tie.”
On the squad…
“The lads are doing alright. We’ve had a few that have played quite a lot of games so we will have to monitor that in the build-up to the game, but we’ve pretty much got everybody there.
“Cup football brings opportunities for people, for those who have been kicking their heels over the last few weeks and for those young players who want to come and show us what they can do in the first team.
“We’re hoping to get Jordan Rossiter back involved, if not Saturday, on Tuesday night against Sunderland. A long-term absentee, someone who was our best player at that point of the season, who would have won some club awards from the supporters – I thought he was outstanding.”
Watch Joey’s full press conference on our iFollow HERE.