PAOLO Di Canio hopes his players have learned the lessons from their goalless draw with Bradford and will approach tomorrow’s game against Alsdershot with the right mentality to ensure they pick up all three points.
The Robins have drawn two of their last three League Two fixtures at the County Ground, throwing away a two-goal lead to draw 3-3 with Hereford in early October before being held to a frustrating goalless draw against Bradford later that month.
Both sides were in the bottom half of the table when they travelled to Wiltshire and with Aldershot currently down in 15th, Di Canio has some slight concerns that his players will be expecting an easy three points tomorrow.
Arguably Town’s best performance so far this season came in their last home game, when they eased to an impressive 4-1 victory over League One high fliers Huddersfield.
And Di Canio wants to see his players approach the Aldershot game in the same way as they did against the Terriers.
The Town boss said: “Everything depends on us. I feel that in any one game we can beat any side – League One, League Two or Championship – we have proved this in many games this season already.
“We have to take the next step forward now in our mentality. I don’t want to see the same first half hour that I saw against AFC Wimbledon and the players cannot think that once we kick off we can win, otherwise we risk a repeat of the Bradford game.
“If we go with a nasty attitude then we can create the same feeling and same atmosphere like we did against Huddersfield, Bristol City and Exeter then we will win the game because we are the better side.”
In the opposite dugout will be Dean Holdsworth, a name Di Canio is familiar with from his playing days.
“He was tough as a player,” he added. “He is a young manager like me, although he has a bit more knowledge and a bit more experience.
“He likes his team to play football and this is a good idea because playing this way means you are looking to the future and not only how to handle League Two.
“I look forward to meeting him and look forward to his side playing football. They have a system and I believe that, after us, they are the second team for the most amount of possession of the ball.
“They like to decide the way they play and I am sure we are going to see some very good quality football on Saturday.”
New loan signing Ronan Murray, who joined the club yesterday from Ipswich, may be handed a start while Di Canio hinted that Lukas Magera could be in the squad after recovering from a hamstring injury.
“Magera will come back into the squad and maybe on the bench on Saturday. That is good news because he had just found a good moment before we lost him again through injury,” added Di Canio.
“We went through though without him and won some games and now he is back we can look forward to the future.”
Mehdi Kerrouche (groin) returned to training this week but Di Canio confirmed that he is unlikely to involve Town’s top scorer tomorrow, with the Italian not yet convinced he is ready to start.
“He is nearly to come back, he said he was ready three days ago but the problem was that before that he did not train, so for me he is not ready,” he continued.
“His team-mates worked very, very hard at the start of the week doing strength sessions but Kerrouche was only on a bicycle and jogging.
“Once he got back and trained hard like he did one-and-a-half months ago, he had more anger because he was out of the squad and when he came back he did something good, so maybe then I can think that he is fully fit.
“So my answer is that he is not ready, I will decide when he is ready.”
Alessandro Cibocchi is fit for selection while Joe Devera is still a few days away from being available as he recovers from an ankle injury.
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