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Wanderers should be used to storm clouds the way things have gone this last few months but those gathering over the Silverlake Stadium this weekend definitely have cause to concern Neil Lennon.
Faced with a tricky non-league opponent on a potential bog of a pitch, his deflated Whites side look ripe for a giant-killing at Eastleigh tomorrow.
That fact isn’t lost on the manager, who can ill-afford another such blemish on his own record.
Lennon freely admits that some of his players – notably the young foreign boys like Prince-Desire Gouano, Wellington Silva or Derik Osede – will have experienced nothing like the muck and nettle environment they will encounter in Hampshire.
And as such, the Northern Irishman is pinning his hopes on the experienced types who have seen and avoided this kind of FA Cup upset before.
“I need my experienced lads to do the job,” Lennon told The Bolton News. “I can’t imagine many of the foreign lads will have seen a non-league pitch, especially at this time of year.
“We’ll be as experienced and professional as we can possibly be in terms of team selection because this is a very tricky tie.”
Shola Ameobi’s return to fitness might have come at the right time for Lennon, who also hopes to welcome Mark Davies back to training this morning.
Emile Heskey will sit out with a calf strain but otherwise Lennon has pledged to name his strongest possible side in order to avoid being the talk of Saturday evening.
Liam Trotter could also come into the equation having returned from his loan spell at Nottingham Forest but Lennon refuses to tinker too much with his team.
“You can’t experiment too much,” he said. “This is a game that will be difficult in its own merits. I don’t want to take chances.
“This is Eastleigh’s cup final. We need to be strong, we need to be as professional as we possibly can.
“We need to negotiate the tie and get through.
“It’s a no-win situation. But it doesn’t matter whether we’re playing Arsenal or Eastleigh the premise of the cup is to get through to the next round. Hopefully we can do that.”
Lennon has been on the wrong end of a cup upset both as manager and player.
At Leicester City – then League Cup holders – he played as Martin O’Neill’s men were knocked out the following season by Grimsby Town.
At Celtic he was dumped out of the Scottish Cup by Clyde – “Roy Keane’s debut,” he pointed out – and also lost against Raith Rovers in just his third game after moving into the dugout.
“I’ve been on the end of a couple and it’s not a nice feeling but I’m trying not to concentrate on it,” he said. “We’ve got a job to do.
“It’s about attitude. I don’t know what state the pitch will be in.
“It is the beauty of the cup. You have to travel to these grounds and negotiate these ties, play in difficult conditions and weather everything.
“We will make them aware of what we might need to be prepared for and roll up our sleeves and do our jobs.”
Eastleigh boss Chris Todd admits the thought of a victory against the four-time FA Cup winners is “breathtaking.”
“It would be everything for what we're trying to achieve as a football club,” he said.
“It would be more history and a momentous occasion for everyone involved, who works day-in, day-out to make this club successful.”
Eastleigh bathed in sunny skies yesterday but with showers forecast this evening and tomorrow morning there could yet be a threat to the game going ahead at all.
Last weekend’s game against Bromley was postponed because of a waterlogged pitch but Spitfires’ chief executive Mark Jewell is confident tomorrow’s tie will go ahead as planned.
“As long as we don't have biblical proportions of rain before Saturday, we should be okay,” he said.
“The pitch will hopefully get some drying time and then from Thursday, we'll get the covers on.
“Off the field, it's been quite hectic. We've had crowds of 4,000-plus here before, but a sell-out is a first.
“We're using it as a learning curve for when we hopefully go on to bigger and better things in the future.”
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Faced with a tricky non-league opponent on a potential bog of a pitch, his deflated Whites side look ripe for a giant-killing at Eastleigh tomorrow.
That fact isn’t lost on the manager, who can ill-afford another such blemish on his own record.
Lennon freely admits that some of his players – notably the young foreign boys like Prince-Desire Gouano, Wellington Silva or Derik Osede – will have experienced nothing like the muck and nettle environment they will encounter in Hampshire.
And as such, the Northern Irishman is pinning his hopes on the experienced types who have seen and avoided this kind of FA Cup upset before.
“I need my experienced lads to do the job,” Lennon told The Bolton News. “I can’t imagine many of the foreign lads will have seen a non-league pitch, especially at this time of year.
“We’ll be as experienced and professional as we can possibly be in terms of team selection because this is a very tricky tie.”
Shola Ameobi’s return to fitness might have come at the right time for Lennon, who also hopes to welcome Mark Davies back to training this morning.
Emile Heskey will sit out with a calf strain but otherwise Lennon has pledged to name his strongest possible side in order to avoid being the talk of Saturday evening.
Liam Trotter could also come into the equation having returned from his loan spell at Nottingham Forest but Lennon refuses to tinker too much with his team.
“You can’t experiment too much,” he said. “This is a game that will be difficult in its own merits. I don’t want to take chances.
“This is Eastleigh’s cup final. We need to be strong, we need to be as professional as we possibly can.
“We need to negotiate the tie and get through.
“It’s a no-win situation. But it doesn’t matter whether we’re playing Arsenal or Eastleigh the premise of the cup is to get through to the next round. Hopefully we can do that.”
Lennon has been on the wrong end of a cup upset both as manager and player.
At Leicester City – then League Cup holders – he played as Martin O’Neill’s men were knocked out the following season by Grimsby Town.
At Celtic he was dumped out of the Scottish Cup by Clyde – “Roy Keane’s debut,” he pointed out – and also lost against Raith Rovers in just his third game after moving into the dugout.
“I’ve been on the end of a couple and it’s not a nice feeling but I’m trying not to concentrate on it,” he said. “We’ve got a job to do.
“It’s about attitude. I don’t know what state the pitch will be in.
“It is the beauty of the cup. You have to travel to these grounds and negotiate these ties, play in difficult conditions and weather everything.
“We will make them aware of what we might need to be prepared for and roll up our sleeves and do our jobs.”
Eastleigh boss Chris Todd admits the thought of a victory against the four-time FA Cup winners is “breathtaking.”
“It would be everything for what we're trying to achieve as a football club,” he said.
“It would be more history and a momentous occasion for everyone involved, who works day-in, day-out to make this club successful.”
Eastleigh bathed in sunny skies yesterday but with showers forecast this evening and tomorrow morning there could yet be a threat to the game going ahead at all.
Last weekend’s game against Bromley was postponed because of a waterlogged pitch but Spitfires’ chief executive Mark Jewell is confident tomorrow’s tie will go ahead as planned.
“As long as we don't have biblical proportions of rain before Saturday, we should be okay,” he said.
“The pitch will hopefully get some drying time and then from Thursday, we'll get the covers on.
“Off the field, it's been quite hectic. We've had crowds of 4,000-plus here before, but a sell-out is a first.
“We're using it as a learning curve for when we hopefully go on to bigger and better things in the future.”
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