Grimsby Town manager Paul Hurst rates today’s opponents Carlisle United as the biggest surprise packets of the season.
Ahead of the game he says: “They are in good form, and having a fantastic season overall so full credit to Paul Simpson, his staff and his players.
“In my mind at least, they are the biggest surprise in League Two this year, and I mean that kindly, because not many people would’ve even had Carlisle in the play-offs this season, so they’re doing extremely well.”
Hurst is bringing his Mariuners squad to Cumbria on the back of one of the great FA Cup shocks – Wednesday’s 2-1 win at Premier League Southampton.
It has given Hurst one day less to focus on Carlisle, as he normally would have expected to play on the Tuesday, while the amount of travelling in those few days is phenomenal given the geographical positions of Southampton and Carlisle from Grimsby.
Hurst said: “The fans should expect effort and commitment from us, the same as always, but performance-wise, you never truly know, you just live in hope once that first whistle blows.
“The effort always has to be there though and as far as I’m concerned there are no excuses on that front, you can always run around and give everything no matter what.
“Potential rotation is something that is clearly on my mind, we’ve got one player that started the other night that is unavailable to us with an injury, but it’s nothing major and hopefully they’ll be back for Tuesday night. The rest that were fit and available remain so.
“If changes are made it will be because the players coming in are good enough to play, and not out of necessity, because the squad is relatively healthy at the moment. I’ve said many times about the importance of the whole team, but that probably hasn’t kicked in as much as I thought it would at this point.
“I’m almost certain that it will though and that might be in the next ten days or so, there is an element of wanting to be loyal to certain players as a manager, but their form can change really quickly and someone that performed well against Southampton might be poor for the next three, so I hope that motivates the players.”
