Alan Devonshire says his Braintree Town players need to focus on their own games rather than Macclesfield Town’s FA Cup success when the two sides meet in a Blue Square Bet Premier clash at the Amlin Stadium tonight.

The Iron head into the game on the back of a morale-boosting 4-1 victory at Tamworth on Saturday, but they will be facing a Silkmen side that, at the same time, were beating Championship front-runners Cardiff City in the third round of the cup.

Whether Macclesfield are energised by that success or have their heads turned by a potentially lucrative fourth-round tie against Premier League neighbours Wigan, Braintree manager Devonshire knows his team have to focus on themselves.

He said: “Hopefully Macclesfield will have an FA Cup headache, but a win like the one they had can work both ways.

“They will be full of confidence that’s for sure, but I’m only worried about us.

“I want to see us build on what we did on Saturday rather than focus on what they did.

“We just have to go out there and do what we did at Tamworth – score goals.

“We took our chances on Saturday, which we didn’t do in either of the games against Cambridge over Christmas and New Year.

“We’ve been defending quite well in recent games and have been creating plenty of chances, but we hadn’t been converting them and it was good to do that at Tamworth.”

Devonshire said Danny Naisbitt’s ankle injury meant Nathan McDonald would start in goal again after making his first league appearance of the season against the Lambs and full-back Sam Habergham is likely to be missing tonight as he recovers from a dead leg.