Exeter City manager Matt Taylor will ring the changes ahead of tonight’s Carabao Cup clash with Coventry City, which will be played at Birmingham City’s St Andrew’s stadium.
The Sky Blues, who beat the Grecians 3-1 to win promotion in the 2018 League Two play-off final, are groundsharing with the Championship Blues this campaign due to ongoing issues with rugby union club Wasps RFC, who own the Ricoh Arena, Coventry’s former home.
A failure to strike a deal over sharing the stadium could not be agreed in the summer, which forced Coventry to move out and arrange their 2019/20 campaign some 22 miles away.
For many Exeter fans, it does at least provide them with the opportunity of visiting a new stadium as the Grecians have not set foot inside St Andrews since August 1999, when they lost the second leg of a League Cup first round tie to Birmingham 3-0 (5-1 on aggregate).
The time before that brought City one of their finest nights in the competition, as an Eamonn Dolan-inspired City romped to a stunning 4-1 win against the Blues, just days after Terry Cooper had acrimoniously quit St James Park and taken up the managers' job at Birmingham in August 1991.
However, the current Exeter boss has warned that he will be making changes to a starting XI that has begun the League Two campaign with successive 1-0 victories, against Macclesfield Town and Stevenage.
“We are playing Saturday-Tuesday, Saturday-Tuesday and the travelling on Friday was brutal – the coach broke down on the motorway and it took three hours just to get to Bristol!” Taylor said. “Then the following week, we are up in the north at Oldham and Morecambe.
“I am not going to complain about it, but I have to be mindful of Tuesday night and it’s an opportunity for some of our players that have not had game time so far this season.
“They are a League One team, there is no pressure on us and it’ll be a good pitch. It will be a strange atmosphere in a big stadium, but hopefully we will travel well in terms of fans, but it is a big old stadium to fill, so it will be a strange atmosphere.
“We have to make it a proper game of football, but we are going there to try and win the game. Hopefully some of our younger boys will get an outing and those that need the minutes will also get a run-out.”
The Grecians are at home to Swindon this weekend in League Two before the long journey to Oldham Athletic the following Tuesday is followed by another mammoth trek north to Morecambe the following weekend.
With so much travel – and so many games in a short space of time – it is easy to understand why Taylor is keen to avoid a burn-out situation, but the opportunity of some game time is one that is much needed for many of his ‘fringe’ players.
Robbie Cundy, Matt Jay, Alex Fisher and Ben Seymour have not featured since the 2-2 friendly draw at Taunton Town on July 25, while the likes of Jordan Tillson, Gary Warren and goalkeeper Jonny Maxted have yet to feature this campaign.
Nicky Law, Saturday’s match winner at Stevenage, is likely to be one of the several players given a rest with Taylor stating: “Jake Taylor, Archie Collins and Nicky Law cover the most distance in every game.
“Jake Taylor especially – the work he does is absolutely phenomenal and Archie and Nicky back him up, so if I have three midfielders covering the most distance, that is going to be part and parcel of any good away performance.
“But when they are tired and leggy, that’s the time they have to use the ball and take the sting out of the opposition. After the first half, I wanted more improvement and quality and we had that in the second half. I thought we were the better team in the second half.”
On Law’s magical strike, which came in the 89th minute, Taylor added: “It was a top quality finish from Nicky and he has done it time and time again for us and I am really pleased with a clean sheet.
“Apart from that early save from Lewis (Ward), I didn’t think he was troubled too much and when you go away to Stevenage, you don’t often say that as a manager, so I am really pleased with a clean sheet and the shift the boys put in.
“We were a lot sharper in terms of our use of the ball and then we controlled it, we just couldn’t quite get the right opening to finish it off and then a little bit of quality from the man that has the most quality on that football pitch – and that’s with no disrespect to anyone else on that pitch.
“I keep wanting more from this group and I am the most demanding manager around because we have to be better than we were in the first half. We have better players than we showed in that first period.
“But once we got a foothold in the game, our use of the ball was better and our attacking players got on the ball higher up the pitch.
“It’s two in two in terms of clean sheets I am pleased and content in terms of the results we have got, but I definitely think there is more to come in terms of performances. I feel this group has got good potential.
“We changed our shape slightly at Stevenage and I will look at it again for Tuesday because of some of the work some of these players are doing.”
