Town boss Lakeland says mentality has to be right in Saturday's FA Cup tie at Southport

Halifax visit Southport in the fourth qualifying round, and are strong favourites to progress given their outstanding run of five straight wins and the hosts' awful start to the season, which sees them currently sit bottom of the National League North.

But Lakeland says the game is a potential banana skin for his team.

"Absolutely it's a banana skin," he said.

"Any time you go into an FA Cup game where you're the higher ranked team, I think it's a banana skin, purely because it's the FA Cup and anything can happen.

"Usually, lower league opponents raise their game because they'll be just as desperate to progress as us.

"I think it's all about professionalism and mentality from us.

"We're in a really good run of form at the minute, we've won five in a row, but we've only lost one in 11, so we're doing a lot of things really well.

"But in games like this, you've got to be professional, and respectful of the opposition, which we always are.

"And at the end of the day, it's a competition that all footballers, coaches, managers and supporters are passionate about.

"It's a massive part of English football, so everybody should have more than enough self-motivation to do well in the competition.

"It's important that we prepare properly, like we always do.

"I expect our players to be fully ready for a difficult game but if they roll into town thinking just because we're a division higher, that it's going to be easy, then we'll get knocked out.

"We've got a lot of players that we’ve given an opportunity to step up from the division Southport are in, to play in the National League week in, week out and it's important they show why they've been given that opportunity by me as manager and by the club.

"So I expect a good performance.

"Everybody's told me the club's not done great in the FA Cup in recent seasons, but that doesn't really bother me.

"What bothers me is what we're doing now and what we want to do is try and write our own piece in the club's history.

"We're doing well in the league at the moment and I want us to try and continue that in the FA Cup as well."

The Town boss reached the first round proper as manager of Curzon Ashton, when they took League One Cambridge to a replay in 2022, drawing both games 0-0 before losing on penalties.

Lakeland's assistant Sam Walker missed a penalty for Curzon in the shoot-out.

Lakeland, who confirmed loanee Owen Devonport is eligible for the game, says he will be selecting his strongest side for the match, although that isn't expected to include Angelo Cappello, who has been called up for international duty with Belize.

"I want to win every game of football we play in," he said.

"We've had a great run of form, we're in a great place in the league, we've had no midweek game this week and we've no midweek game next week, unless we draw at Southport.

"So there's been ample rest time for the players between fixtures and it's a competition we want to do well in so we'll be picking our strongest available 11 players."