Club

Edwards eyes strong team selection

Town boss Rob Edwards will pick a side “strong enough to win the game” as his team head to Everton for an FA Cup fourth round tie on Saturday.

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With two big Premier League fixtures on the horizon at home to Brighton and away to Newcastle next week, Edwards said there will be contingences in place to deal with any eventuality in the next week.

“The league is of course the most important but this game is the next game and we will prepare right because we want to win and go as far as we can,” the manager said.

“I’m aware we’ve got an important game a few days later but we’ve got things in place – our focus is to win the game knowing we’ve got two extremely difficult games coming up in the Premier League.

“The FA Cup is an amazing competition so we’re taking it very, very seriously. For us, we want to continue building our performances and the feelgood factor because we’ve been in good form. We’re really looking forward to it; Everton’s a brilliant football club, it’s a great stadium so the motivation is there for us.”

On the personnel front, Edwards will be without the services of Jordan Clark, with the midfielder suspended after picking up two bookings in the games against Bolton in the previous rounds.

Mads Andersen remains unavailable, while Issa Kaboré remains on international duty with Burkina Faso after his country reached the last-16 of the African Nations Cup.

Midfielder Marvellous Nakamba has had an operation on his meniscus, but will remain sidelined for several months but Sambi Lokonga is fit to play after being rested for the FA Cup replay at Bolton.

“I love his smile around the place and, while he’s still smiling, you can tell he’s desperate to be out on the pitch,” said the manager.

With the Hatters returning to the scene of their first Premier League win back in September, Edwards hopes his team take confidence as they aim to reach the fifth round.

“It gives you belief knowing you’ve done it [winning] there before,” said the manager. “This will be a different occasion; Everton have won a lot of football matches since that game.

“But like we did at Sheffield United the other week – we knew we had done it before. Maybe there’s something in that but we’ll see.”

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