Steven Schumacher wants to kick the weekend off in style when his Whites take on Championship high-fliers Middlesbrough tonight.
Wanderers face third-placed Boro (KO 8pm) on the back of two superb away results which saw Schumacher’s men take four points from trips to Wolves and Southampton.
And the boss wants another big performance against a likely promotion candidate in front of the live TV cameras and another big Toughsheet Community Stadium crowd, with close to 26,000 tickets having been sold.
“It'll be a really good game of football again – two teams who will try and go about it in their own different ways. It should be exciting and I would imagine there's going to be goals in it because they're involved in games with high scoring goals and outcomes,” said Schumacher.
“Being live on Sky, being on a Friday night in front of our home crowd with the amount of tickets that we've sold all adds to it. Now we want to try and go into it with the same attitude as what we did against West Ham which was another huge home game for us under the lights and try and play as well but hopefully get a better result.”
Wanderers lost 3-2 to West Ham in a five-goal thriller in early September but have been beaten only once since to sit 15th in the table.
Boro – beaten in last season’s play-off final – are likely to provide a similar test with former Wanderers’ loanee Amario Cozier-Duberry one of the Teessiders major weapons.
“I'm really looking forward to seeing Mario,” added Schumacher, who signed the winger on loan from Brighton last season and saw him score nine times en route to promotion from League One. “He was absolutely brilliant for us last year. Everybody loved him, all the staff, the players, the fans because he was a joy to work with, with his enthusiasm, his energy, his professionalism and I think we got the best out of him.
“He came into the club after a difficult loan the season before and really flourished in our environment. He got his confidence going and showed his ability that he's undoubtedly got. We're looking forward to seeing him but we're going to do our best to try and stop him, which is a challenge as well for every other player that they've got.
“They've only lost one game all season which is some going at this level and they've shown good character a number of times having fell behind and then come back, none more so than last weekend against Cardiff. They’ve got strengths all over the pitch and we look forward to the challenge of trying to deal with it.”
Watch the full pre-match interview with the boss on Wanderers TV