Scott Parker might mix and match with his team at Portman Road tomorrow night – but the Fulham boss is eager for his side to put together a strong run in the League Cup this year.
Parker will have half an eye on Saturday’s clash with Leeds United at Elland Road, which is already shaping up to be an important fixture between two newly-promoted teams, but will be putting out a team that he believes can beat their League One opposition tomorrow night.
Speaking to Fulham’s official website, Parker said:
It’s a competition that we respect. A good cup run, we know that that can build confidence and momentum. And also, at the same time it helps in terms of getting players minutes and getting players up to speed, those who haven’t been with us too long, or haven’t played a lot of football or trained a lot due the circumstances of having such a short pre-season.
But as much as we want to get minutes into the boys to get them up to speed, we also want to go and win the game. We want to stay in the competition and hopefully be successful in it. Winning is the most important thing. Every time you play a football match, you want to win. It’s an opportunity for us to win a game, which is what we plan to do every game this year. We understand we’re not going to be able to do that every week, but our ambition is to try and win football matches, so this gives us a good platform to try and do that and then build from it.
He will not be underestimating the challenge posed by Ipswich and singled out their manager Paul Lambert for particular praise.
They’ve got a good manager, an experienced manager in Paul, and a team which has some good young talent in there, mixed with some good experience with the older pros. They’ve got all the dynamics to do very well this year. They’re a good side who try and play the right way, so it’s going to be a tough game for us.
They try and play football, they like to get the ball down. They’ve got technical players, players who like the ball on the floor. And like I said, they’ve got a good blend of talented younger players alongside some older, more experienced players in [Luke] Chambers and people like that.
