Next Up: Cheltenham vs Exeter City. League Cup
After the poor display at Doncaster and the not unexpected news about the club’s worse than expected financial situation, City turned in a performance of the highest quality against a Blackpool side that splashed the cash in the summer. Attention now turns to the first midweek match of the season and a trip to Cheltenham in the EFL Cup. Gary Caldwell hinted post-match on Saturday that some of the players who missed out on the Blackpool match may feature, while there may be an opportunity for the likes of back-up goalkeeper Jack Bycroft to get some minutes under his belt. That said, a cup run would be good for the bank balance, and therefore Caldwell will need to balance the need to get players some game time with fielding a side strong enough to defeat the opposition.
In their second season back in the fourth tier after relegation from League One, Cheltenham have been tipped by many pundits to struggle, and two defeats to open the season have done little to dispel these thoughts. Michael Flynn has a comparatively small squad to work with, and it should be said that both matches so far have been against sides tipped to do well, but no goals so far will be a worry. Flynn sought to replace the departed Matty Taylor and now banned ex-Grecian Ryan Bowman with Lee Angol, who scored seven times for relegated Morecambe, and Ryan Broom from Fleetwood, but neither have been prolific in their careers so scoring may prove a struggle. Elsewhere a brace of former City players are likely to line up in defence, Scot Bennett linking up with Robbie Cundy, who had a blink and you’ll miss it loan spell in City colours before leaving without playing a match.
City will have very fond memories of the other time they visited Cheltenham in this competition as recently as 2022 – City trounced Cheltenham 7-0 through Nombe (2), Collins, Jay, Sparkes, Kite and Coley. Cheltenham got their revenge by doing a league double over City that season, but this was reversed in 23/24 as City took the points with wins by 1-0 (Watts) and 2-1 (Williams for Cheltenham, Harris and a last gasp Reece Cole penalty for City).
The match officials for the game will be:-
Referee: Alan Young
Assistant Referees: Scott Chalkley and Abbas Khan
Fourth Official: Marcus Carmichael
The last time Alan Young took charge of an Exeter game was November 2023. Played at St James Park the game ended 0-0. His stats for last season was refereed 24 games, showed 119 yellow cards and sent off three players. He’s also been the fourth official a few times at Exeter games.
Pre-game interview with Gary Caldwell
Interview with Sonny Cox