CHRIS LAKEY Peter Grant has told his players to try and avoid the lottery of penalty kicks and dispatch Rochdale within 90 minutes. The City boss is well aware of the pitfalls of the spot-kick finale - and the fact that Rochdale reached the second round after beating Championship outfit Stoke City 4-2 on penalties in the first round after the match had finished 2-2.

CHRIS LAKEY

Peter Grant has told his players to try and avoid the lottery of penalty kicks and dispatch Rochdale within 90 minutes.

The City boss is well aware of the pitfalls of the spot-kick finale - and the fact that Rochdale reached the second round after beating Championship outfit Stoke City 4-2 on penalties in the first round after the match had finished 2-2.

“If it takes that to win the game that's what we have got to do, but we want to win it in 90 minutes,” said Grant, whose first Carling Cup tie ended in a third-round shootout defeat at Port Vale last October.

“They beat Stoke and it doesn't matter if it was on penalty kicks, Stoke are a very, very tough side to play against. I know it went to penalty kicks but by all accounts they did very well in the game, so we know if we are not on with our mental attitude we will suffer the same fate and go out of the competition.”

Rochdale earned their first point of the season in a 1-1 draw at Hereford on Saturday, but Grant believes they are better than their position of one off the bottom of the League Two ladder.

“They are starting to find their legs a bit as well,” he said. “People start judging people too early, but they have had tough games and by all accounts did very well again on Saturday in a tough game for them.

“But we know enough about them, we know the players, we know what to expect, but I am more conscious of what we expect from our own players. We still feel there is a lot to come from our team, but we have been stop and start because of personnel changes and it is not ideal.

“The same preparation goes in as if we were playing Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United. We have proved we are not good enough to switch off. We have seen a lot of Championship sides going out and we don't want to be one of them, we want to go as far as we possibly can.

“To do that we have to be a group that is very much focussed going into a very difficult game. Rochdale will be going in thinking it is a good home draw for them. They will make it competitive as you would expect - we saw that on Saturday, we matched the competitive edge but we still have to add the quality to it.”