Luton striker relishing FA Cup clash at in-form Reds
Town take on Forest at the City Ground
Luton striker Carlton Morris is looking forward to pitting his wits against one of the most in-form teams in English football this weekend when Town head to Nottingham Forest for their FA Cup third round clash this afternoon.
The Hatters will be huge underdogs at the City Ground when going up against Nuno Espírito Santo’s side who won a sixth top flight game in a row for the first time since the 1966-67 campaign on Monday night when triumphing 3-0 at Wolverhampton Wanderers. It means the Reds are now third in the Premier League, level on points with second placed Arsenal and six behind leaders Liverpool, with the two teams’ fortunes a million miles away from 12 months ago.
Then, they were both battling to stay in the highest tier of English football, Town earning a 2-2 draw in the East Midlands thanks to two late goals from Chiedozie Ogbene and Elijah Adebayo. With Forest now having one eye on possible Champions League qualification, the Hatters meanwhile are trying to avoid a depressing slide into League One.
Despite that, Morris was still looking forward to the contest, saying: “It’s another game of football against top opposition where we can go and try and prove ourselves again, so I’m really excited to get our heads down this week and start working towards that. They’re in form for sure but we’ll be excited to put our gameplan to use against them and hopefully take a result. We had a good 2-2 draw there last season, a Premier League point so we can take confidence from that.”
Caretaker boss Paul Trollope is also hoping Town can use last season’s result in their favour too, adding: “We’re going into the game as obvious underdogs, they’re flying high in the Premier League and in a good vein of form but sometimes you get grounds you go to, especially away grounds where you have a good feel and we discussed it the other day about the comeback last season and the feeling of that in front of our own fans at that end.
"It was an amazing feeling at the end of the game and a big point for us at the time so hopefully we can harness a little bit of that, take a bit of confidence from that. It’s a different situation now, but we want to go there with a clear mind, with a positive attitude, we know it’s at tough challenge, but we really want to embrace it and really want to show what we’re about as a group, as a team, we feel a sense of shared responsibility with what’s happened obviously, and we want to put things right, we want to fight and show that spirit to put on a good performance and hopefully that result will follow.”