Jay's Friday Briefing
Jay speaks to Matt prior to the FA Cup encounter at Haringey Borough
This weekend we visit the scene of one of our finest hours of recent years, Haringey Borough, this time in the FA Cup. Four years ago it was the start of our super play-off run, but what will this game bring?
Manager Jay Saunders is keen to improve the club's recent record in the FA Cup, which has seen just one run to the first round in more than 50 years and have a run which would stop that annual conversation once and for all.
He said: "The amount of times I've had that thrown at me this week, it's scary. Of course it's something I want to address, but for me it's just about winning the next game after last week. It's an FA Cup game, but we don't treat them any lighter just because they're in a lower league, and we've prepared really well.
"For the club and for supporters it's a big occasion, it's an opportunity to put the club on the map and bring some revenue to the club."
Although as a club we have a somewhat modest recent cup record, Jay himself has a good one:
"As a player and a manager I've had good runs. I'd never gone out that early before as we did last year and it hurt. There were reasons for it as you know, we had a lot of people out and we haven't got that excuse this year. We go there with almost everyone available.
"You can look at league positions but Haringey are a good side, it's a cliche that everything like that goes out of the window. It won't be easy, it's who turns up on the day and we've got to make sure that's us."
The team availability is quite different to last week's game against Taunton with several players returning to the squad.
Jay said: "Lewis Gard will have a test before the game, we'll only play him if he's 100%. We've got pretty much everyone available. Jernade is back, Waggy is back, Joe Boachie is back available, we're in a stronger position but whoever we put out there will have to go out there and do a job to make sure we're in the hat on Monday.”
Jay also added that new signing Jeremy Santos has been given permission to play for the Angels in the FA Cup.