Gaffer upbeat ahead of weekend's clash between Robins and Rovers at Ashton Gate.
With Doncaster Rovers returning to the road this weekend, manager Paul Dickov has called on his side to be confident when they face unbeaten Bristol City at Ashton Gate.Rovers themselves have recorded four wins out of four in all competitions away from home this season and Dickov sees no reason why it can’t continue.
“What we do is go there with plenty of confidence because we’ve had some tough away trips and performed really well and the players are desperate to provide a reaction after the Oldham game,” he said.
“We’ve also touched on how we go about things away from home and can go down there and expect a result.
“We know it’s going to be tough, but it was going to Yeovil and Watford so the boys have shown that away from home they know how to win games, either by playing football or digging in.”
Rovers are at close to full strength for the trip to the south-west, with Curtis Main the only exception due to his knee injury.
Familiar faces in the Robins ranks include ex-Rovers loanee Jay Emmanuel-Thomas and former Rotherham striker Kieran Agard, who moved to Bristol in the summer for a fee believed to be around the £750,000 mark.
“They’re a good team who are unbeaten and very good at home. Steve Cotterill is someone I know well and I worked with him as a player for a brief spell at Leicester and he’s a top football man who’s got his team organised,” said Dickov.
“I watched his side against Scunthorpe last week and they played reasonably well and they’ve got a team that knows how to grind out results, especially at home so it’s going to be a tough test for us.
“They’re one of the favourites to go up because of the players they’ve got.”
The game comes off the back of an international break for Rovers who had midfielder Dean Furman represent South Africa in the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.
“We’ve had a decent start considering the short preparation period but we expected that, knew that it wasn’t going to happen overnight and that people would need to be patient,” said Dickov of his side’s form of late.
“You can look at it both ways, whether you win or lose, you want the next game to come as quick as you can. When you have a two week break, it gives you time to work on things, which was important for us.
“We got some really good work in to the players, we didn’t batter them because we had players who’d played seven games in 28 days and we think we’ve handled them the right way.”