Wrexham are ‘not going to roll over’ against Coventry, Phil Parkinson says
The Red Dragons are flying high in the National League
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Wrexham manager Phil Parkinson is confident his side can prove a difficult challenge for Coventry City when they meet in the FA Cup.
The Red Dragons face the Championship outfit in the third round having already beaten Farnborough and National League rivals Oldham in the competition so far.
Despite the gulf between the two teams, with the Sky Blues playing three tiers above Wrexham in the football pyramid, Parkinson insists his side are not going to roll over.
“Obviously Coventry offer a very different challenge to what Farnborough did,” he told a pre-match press conference.
“The out of possession stuff is going to be really important because you’ve got to respect Coventry are going to have a lot of the ball, like we did against Farnborough.
“We’ve got to make sure we’ve got nice distance while out of possession, but equally I said to the lads when we win it back we’ve got to look to play ourselves.
“We’ve got the players capable of passing the ball, getting control of games and that’s what I’m looking forward to seeing us do.
“We’re not just going there to hang in there, we’re going there to play, we’ll work hard to obviously make it difficult and restrict space when Coventry have got the ball.
“The FA Cup is the competition when I was growing up, was probably the biggest weekend in the football calendar at the time and everyone looked forward to the FA Cup.
“That stays with you, I still feel it’s got its magic, I really do, there’s always a different feel to FA Cup games and we go there like I say with nothing to lose at all.
“We’ll play with a real freedom and enjoy the day.”
The tie is a break for Wrexham in their endeavour to secure promotion from the National League.
Their quest for promotion has been well documented thanks to their Hollywood owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney and the team are currently second in the table, two points behind leaders Notts County.
They enter the game in an incredible run of form where they are unbeaten in the last 15 games across all competitions and Parkinson is pleased with how well his players have handled the expectations surrounding them.
He said: “These lads have played under or lived with quite a lot of expectation for a while, we’ve always got the TV camera at live games, we’ve had loads of them – I’ve lost count the number of times we’ve been on TV this year.
“That’s good, we’ve enjoyed that, but I feel the group are dealing with those expectations well, playing in front of a packed house every week at home and you need certain characters to play with that expectation that are around us.
“One thing I’ve been so pleased about is even games where we’ve gone a goal behind at times, we’ve never hid away at times from taking responsibility and that’s called character.
“I’m looking forward to seeing us do that again at Coventry.”
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