Belief is building in the squad, says Town boss Millington ahead of FA Cup tie at Ebbsfleet

The Shaymen reached the second round of the competition last season but have generally under-achieved in the cups in recent years.

They come into Saturday's game in good form, having won four of their last six matches, but visit an Ebbsfleet side who were unbeaten this season ahead of last night's game against Havant and Waterlooville.

"It's exciting," said Millington. "I think there's been big games all along, you could argue St Ives was bigger than this because we went into that heavy favourites.

"It's an exciting game and an exciting prospect and an opportunity for us to progress in the cup."

When asked if the cup tie comes at a good time for his side given their improved form, Millington said: "I think we're in a better place than we were a few weeks ago, there's more stability and consistency around team selection, which is pleasing.

"There are clearly some real improved individual performances, there are some improved partnerships developing and as a result, the unit and the team as a whole are starting to look a lot more cohesive.

"We're certainly in a better place than we've been but we've got a good bank of experience from early in the season to know how it feels to under-perform, so we'll be guarding very strongly against that."

Millington feels there is more resilience about his side than earlier in the season.

"They've now go those experiences of competing and doing so well against Wrexham for a long period, being at home against Oldham with such a huge following and being pegged back late on but then going on to win," he said.

"Situations like that have started to build a certain confidence and belief, that the players realise they can compete with teams at the very top of the division, they can beat teams when they face a little bit of adversity.

"There's that belief coming into the group now that's taken a little longer than we'd have liked to develop, but it is developing off the back of the experiences from those games."

The Shaymen have lost cup games to other lower-league teams in recent seasons, including Kidderminster, South Shields and Halesowen.

On whether defeat on Saturday would be classed as an unacceptable result, Millington said: "We don't take about acceptable and unacceptable in terms of results, what's acceptable and unacceptable is related to performance.

"There are always things that happen within games that are out of our control, that can influence the result, but the things that are under our control are how hard we work, how well we work together as a team, how aggressive we are with and without the ball.

"But the result generally takes care of itself.

"We go into this game absolutely desperate to get a win and progress because we're desperate to have a good cup run this year.

"Only after the game will we know if we've done enough to secure that."

On what he would class as a good cup run, the Town boss said: "It's difficult to answer without knowing who we play in the next round.

"A good cup run at this stage means progressing past Ebbsfleet, and we'll see who comes out of the hat for the next round.

"We want to go and experience some good occasions, whether that's at The Shay or elsewhere, we want to progress and play in some exciting cup games and go as far as we can in the competition."

Town will receive £41,000 in prize money if they win on Saturday, as well as a potentially more lucrative second round draw.

"As a staff and a group of players, we don't go into games weighing up the importance against the financial gain, the importance is we're desperate to have a good cup run and we're desperate to progress in this competition, that's what drives the importance of it for us," Millington said.

"The people upstairs will see the opportunity for much-needed income, but the importance of every game for us is about whether we win it or not and we go into this one desperate to win, as we do every game."

On Ebbsfleet, who have won nine of their ten home games in all competitions this season, Millington said: "They're a strong outfit and we've seen from the teams who came up, we should have been playing Dorking on Tuesday, they're comfortably in mid-table having beaten Notts County in the not-too-distant past.

"Maidstone not doing quite so well but they've taken some scalps this season as well.

"Any team coming up from that division has proved competitive.

"There's a good number of players in the Ebbsfleet squad with National League and Football League experience, so we don't take them lightly.

"It's nice to go into a game like on a more level playing field rather than going in as massive favourites, as we did against St Ives, where it's almost only expected to be one outcome.

"At least in this game, there'll be equally as much pressure on Ebbsfleet to win as there will be on us."

Follow all the action from the game on Saturday with our live blog on the Courier website, where there will also be an on-the-whistle match report and post-match reaction from Town boss Chris Millington.