Tilly: 'It's a competition I always want to do well in'
Blues boss Steve Tilson has already taking Southend to the final of this competition twice and small squad or not he plans to field the strongest possible line-up to-night.
Seeing as he's lost four players to injury, suspension and being cup-tied, and he has to play at least six regular first teamers due to JPT rules, that only leaves around fifteen to pick from anyway!
Still, good to go into the game being positive.
He told the official site: "I won't be making many changes at all because this is a competition I always want to do well in. I always take it seriously and field strong line-ups and it will be no different tonight. It's one of the hardest games we could be facing at this stage as MK Dons are a very good team but we want to win there and get through to the later stages again."
After two finals at Cardiff's Millenium stadium the Shrimpers manager would like to try his luck at Wembley!
Tilly explained: "That's the dream and it would be amazing to do it. We've got to the final twice before and it would be great to do it again but it's going to be very difficult and there's an awful long way to go before we can even think about that."
Dons boss Paul Ince has suggested he will utilise fringe members of his squad for the cup-tie but Tilly is unconcerned.
He continued: "I haven't a clue who they will play. But if we can perform like we did at Stockport on Saturday then we have a chance of winning."
Ince: "When their chance comes along, they have to seize it"
The ex-Blackburn boss Ince though is going into the game lightly.
Speaking to www.mkdons.com he said: "Of course we'll be taking the game seriously, like we take every game, but I will be resting players where I can because the programme has been hard and we've got another big game against Walsall on Saturday."
Ince, of course, has a far bigger squad of players to choose from than Tilly and wants to see of the fringe players leaving their mark.
He continued: "The squad is in it together and that's why they're such a great bunch of lads. they know it's competitive, that's football, but when their chances come along as they may do on Tuesday, they know they have to seize them."