Oxford City’s general manager Justin Merritt hopes the FA Cup will provide a big distraction to their chief Vanarama Conference North rivals and enable his side to cash in.

While North Ferriby, Guiseley, AFC Fylde and Chorley are taking part in the third qualifying round, Merritt has his eyes firmly fixed on tomorrow’s visit of Solihull Moors to Marsh Lane.

“We’re not looking back at the Cup (they lost 2-1 at Shortwood United) at all,” said Merritt.

“It’s not our concern. We’ve got a big game ourselves this weekend.

“My real hope is that all the teams go as far as they can.

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“Games build up and then you have the FA Trophy as well, so they end up playing hardly any league games, which never helps.

“We just have to focus on accumulating points.”

Merritt is looking for his side to make it three straight wins, after they backed up last weekend’s 5-3 victory at Colwyn Bay with a 2-1 midweek success against Stockport County.

He added: “We played some really good football in the first half and really opened them up by playing at a high tempo.

“In the second half they got themselves galvanised and we didn’t play so much football, but we showed a resilience that we haven’t had.

“We really worked hard as a team and could have scored one or two more.

“We’ve won five of our last six games, which is pretty good form.

“We had to make a couple of changes, because we had a few out, so it was a really good effort from the players.”

Merritt added: “Solihull are in a good run of form, so I expect it to be a really tricky game.

“I want to keep our run going and put as much pressure as we can on the other teams.”

City will be without defender Alejandro-Adrian Santiago (calf strain) and midfielder Ander Del Alamo (ankle ligament strain) for around two weeks, while Ben Brown will join Southern League side Wantage Town on loan.

Oxford City (v Solihull Moors, home): from Scott, Stonehouse, Pond, Lapoujade, Green, Rodriguez, Barcelos, Mullings, Yussuf, Benjamin, Winters, Wilson, Brown, Henderson, Isaac, Hoban, Jackson, Hall.

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