Steve Evans is ready for a battle when his Bristol Rovers team travels to Barrow on Tuesday night.
The Pirates make their longest away trip of the season, looking for a third win in four outings after a string of positive results. A 3-1 victory over Grimsby Town at The Memorial Stadium and a 1-1 draw with Swindon Town came before a 2-1 triumph against Crewe Alexandra on the weekend.
Alfie Pond's first-half effort had looked like it would be enough for the Railymen, but the Gas hit two late goals to score around. Tommy Leigh, brought off the bench at half-time, powered in a header to level the score before scoring the winner with just moments left to play.
Speaking to the media, Evans previewed the upcoming game against Barrow and delivered team news, with the Head Coach looking for a fresh approach.
BARROW PREVIEW
“We’ll travel up nice and early on Monday. We’ll train at a Championship facility on the way up on Monday afternoon. People don’t see that contribution from the owners; it’s a lot of big spends, but we’ll go up early on Monday, and we’ll prepare properly.
“We’ll be active in a little training session on Tuesday, and we’ll look to freshen it up. We’ll look to freshen the team up because we’re going to use our squad, like I told the boys, and then we’ll go to Barrow.
“I’ve been up there when I’ve won promotion in terms of when I was at Stevenage. Our final day was away at Barrow. That was a party bus on the way home. I don’t want a party bus if we win at Barrow, but I would like a happy bus. I’ve got respect for Barrow, certainly for the chairman and Ian, the sporting director.
“They are really good people, and they work hard. I watched them first-hand last night, and they should have beaten Cheltenham. We have to go to Barrow and be prepared to fight. If you’re not prepared to fight, don’t get on the coach.”
TEAM NEWS
“There will be changes. I think we learnt last time when we had three games in a week. We tried to keep a lot of the personnel the same, and fatigue plays a part. When we wake up on Tuesday morning, the way we’ll prepare on Monday, every one of those boys will be fresh, but I want a fresh approach to football. If you think of the three substitutions we made today, Tommy is obviously fresh, and Fabrizio Cavegn is fresh.
“The three that we brought onto the pitch were fresh and ready. We might be looking at that, especially when you look at our bench today, and you look at who’s not involved. You look at lads like Ellis Harrison coming off at 45, you look at Yusuf Akhamrich coming off at 45, young Kane Thompson-Sommers comes off at 45 after being the best player for the last two games."
