Gaffer prepared to cast friendship aside in search of round two place.
In a game that sees two bitter rivals battle it out for a Capital One Cup second round place, former team mates and close friends will re-unite in the dugouts at Keepmoat Stadium tonight.Paul Dickov and Uwe Rosler who were both strikers during their playing days linking up together at Manchester City before the Leeds United manager headed back to his native Germany. As soon as the first whistle blows tonight, though, that friendship in football terms goes straight out of the window.
The Doncaster Rovers boss said: “Me and Uwe are mates and we will have a catch up before the game, we are both competitive people and we both wanted to be winners as footballers and we both do as managers. When that match starts I'll be doing everything to beat his team and knowing Uwe how he is, his professionalism and his dedication he'll be doing the exact same thing.”
Leeds started their Sky Bet Championship campaign with a 1-1 draw against Burnley at Elland Road and as we know Rovers started League One with a point at the Keepmoat in bizarre fashion. Dickov once played for United during his illustrious 21-year career but only made four apperances during his time there.
“It was short spell, Simon Grayson brought me in and when I arrived I knew I wasn't going to feature heavily due to it being a young squad at the time. They were very close to being promoted and Grayson wanted some more senior pro's to partner the likes of Andy Hughes and Robert Snodgrass.”
The Carling Cup first round has been somewhat an unhappy hunting ground for Sky Bet Championship sides as we have seen no less than seven clubs crash out over the past two days and Dickov is looking to add the West Yorkshire club to that list.
“All the pressure is on Leeds really, they come here as the Championship team and a lot of people are expecting them to win, we can take a lot of heart from knowing what we done to some Championship sides last season,” he said.
“Looking at results already this week there are already a lot of Championship clubs that are out and we are looking at that and thinking that is something that we could do.”