DROITWICH SPA joint-boss Wayne Oliver insists his side won’t change their style of play ahead of their cup clash at Chelmsley Town on Saturday.
The Saltmen have already made the trip to The Pavilion twice this season, winning the first encounter 2-1 in the Les James Challenge Cup before Chelmsley won the league fixture by a similar scoreline on March 5.
A month later, the two sides are to meet once again in the semi-finals of the Presidents Cup with the prospect of meeting fellow Midland League Division Two clubs Hampton or Alvis Sporting Club in the final.
And for Oliver, he will not be changing his style of play to suit Chelmsley’s pitch despite the Saltmen’s passing game being nullified in the previous league encounter.
“It’s a really difficult pitch and they are not going to prepare the pitch to allow the ball to be played through midfield,” he said.
“However, I will not be changing my tactics to suit the pitch, we like to pass the ball around and we will do that once again.
“We’ve played them twice already but our performance against them in the league wasn’t the greatest so I’ll be hoping for a better one this time around.”
Spa go into Saturday’s game on the back of a 2-1 Les James Challenge Cup semi-final defeat to Alvis Sporting Club.
Despite Macaulay Finch giving the Saltmen a 1-0 lead at half-time, a mad ten minute spell saw Alvis turn the tie around thanks to goals from Tommy Maguire and Charlie Cooks.
But Oliver said his side has come away with no regrets as the Saltmen still have the chance of a cup double this season.
“We controlled the game against Alvis for about on hour on Saturday but our own errors cost us the game,” he added.
“As our game against Paget Rangers was postponed on Easter Monday, we had the lads in training for a couple of hours and had a little chat about the result.
“What our performance showed on that day is you don’t need to spend money on players to perform and even though we fell behind, I have to give credit for my players for not crumbling under the pressure.
“We’ve still got plenty to play for and it would be nice if we could walk away with some silverware as the lads deserve it for how far they have come, but you never know what happens in football.
“I hope on Saturday that the players put on a performance and respond well to the defeat against Alvis.”
