Manager Nathan Jones is hoping for an ‘FA Cup adventure’ which begins in the third round against League Two Harrogate Town on Sunday afternoon.
Jones, who recently signed a new five-and-a-half-year contract with the club, hopes his side will apply the right attitude to reach the fourth round of the competition despite not playing for over a month by the time the game comes around.
“The FA Cup is a wonderful, wonderful competition, one with great history and one that I’ve been very proud to play in and manage in. Ideally, we’d probably like to win it, or to maybe have a few games and get a real good lucrative draw.
“We had two wonderful draws last year against Chelsea and Manchester United, but without fans. We’d like to give the fans something, they had a wonderful trip away to Newcastle a few years ago, and we’d like to give them something like that again.
“With the greatest respect, the Championship’s our bread and butter and we need to do that, and there are big sides that are probably better than us in terms of Man City, Man United, Chelsea or Liverpool that are probably going to win the tournament, so let’s have an adventure and then concentrate on the league.”
The manager later discussed team news, in which he revealed Harry Cornick is the only player set to continue his spell on the sideline.
“Luke (Berry) is back, he’s been in full training over the break so it has helped him and actually helped Harry because he hasn’t missed as many games as he should have. We’re almost at full strength, obviously we have Admiral Muskwe away with AFCON and we wish him well but apart from that, we’re in good shape.
“A lot of players need game time now as we missed four games, so it won’t be 11 changes, what we will do is we’ll pick a side to try and win the game against Harrogate, whatever side that is. We now have to prepare for Bournemouth, but before Bournemouth, we’ve got a very, very difficult game and that’s the most important thing.”