Darren Sarll wants his side to pick themselves up and dust themselves off for what will be a tough EFL Cup clash with Ipswich Town this evening (Tuesday).

The Comet: Darren SarllDarren Sarll (Image: Archant)

Stevenage were disappointing in their 2-1 home defeat to Crewe Alexandra in the opening League Two match of the season on Saturday, leading Sarll to call his team ‘unorganised’ and ‘not a Stevenage side’.

The Boro boss now has to pick up his players for the trip to Portman Road to take on an Ipswich side high on confidence following a 4-2 thrashing of Barnsley in their opening Championship game of the season at the weekend.

It is the second successive year that Stevenage will have travelled to Ipswich in the first round of the competition.

Last year’s match finished 2-1 to the hosts thanks to goals from Josh Yorwerth and Jay Tabb, and Ipswich have already announced their team for tonight’s match.

Among those set to feature for Mick McCarthy’s team are Everton loanee Conor Grant and Grant Ward, who signed from Premier League side Spurs for an undisclosed fee in the summer.

Speaking ahead of the match, Sarll said: “I want to make sure that the players take their slap on the wrist and we get them in a positive frame of mind to do something good in the cup because cup runs for this club are really important.

“We have no choice but to go again to pick ourselves up. That’ll be the true test of how together this group is.

“When we lose we press the reset button. We have the blueprint and we go back to the blueprint. We go over it and we go again. Something I know about this group is that we will step up under disappointment.”