The Blues entertain League One club Leeds United in their Carling Cup first round tie at the Deva Stadium (7.45pm kick-off) which is being televised live.

Blues boss, Simon Davies, realises the importance of the all-ticket cup clash on the back of City's 6-0 league defeat at Dagenham and Redbridge on Saturday.

He said: "Tonight provides a big chance for the team, but they've got to grasp that now and the players have got to learn from Saturday's defeat in London.

"If we do learn from the 6-0 loss then we can start to push on.

"Luckily Dagenham was only one game and it was a dreadful performance, but we can actually take the bits of positives that were there, and we obviously need to brush up on a few things.

"But we're live on television tonight and Leeds are an attractive team, and now we've got to go out and prove to everybody what we're about and we'll work hard to make sure that happens."

Davies is keen to see a dramatic improvement in his team's performance and work ethic after providing a critical appraisal of his side immediately after the 6-0 drubbing in the capital.

Davies admitted he had received information about Gary McAllister's Leeds team on the back of the Yorkshire club's 2-1 victory at Scunthorpe United.

He said: "I've got information from Leeds' match at the weekend against Scunthorpe, but I can do all the bits, I can get all the homework about Leeds from scouting reports and we can work hard in training, but we need to go and prove to everyone how good we are on the pitch.

"It's no good for me to keep saying to everyone how good we are - and we are - if we don't perform in games.

"I believe we've got one of the best squads in our division, but we've got to show people how good we can be."

Davies is hoping club captain and influential centre half, Paul Linwood, can recover in time to play for City against Leeds.

Linwood was hopeful of playing at Dagenham and Redbridge on Saturday, but he pulled up during the warm-up with a recurrence of his back injury and was replaced by Kevin Roberts in central defence.

Davies said: "We'll give Linny (Paul Linwood) all the time he needs to recover from his back injury.

"He received treatment yesterday and today from our physio Ben Holt, and we're going to give him as long as it takes to be fit for tonight because we miss him when we don't have him."

Meanwhile, Davies admitted that he remained hopeful of adding Chester-born midfielder Eddie Johnson to his squad this week.

Johnson, whose former clubs include Manchester United and Crewe Alexandra, played regularly last season for Bradford City but was released by the Bantams at the end of the campaign.

Davies said: "There is a possibility of Eddie Johnson joining us, but we've got to iron a few things out first. Eddie has been training with the squad for the last week and it would be nice to sort something out this week."

Ask Davies

If you have a question for Chester City's Simon Davies email it to digitalnews@nwn.co.uk and we'll ask as many as we can during our next weekly video interview with the Chester boss.