Tipped for the top

SAFE PAIR OF HANDS . . . Connor Ripley can hit the heights in the Premier League, says boss Stephen Robinson

ATHLETIC reach the halfway mark in the club's busiest EVER opening month tonight as a work-in-progress, with manager Stephen Robinson backing his young goalkeeper to go on and prove his worth in the Premier League.

With the scheduling of the home group game against Carlisle United in the Checkatrade Trophy confirmed for Tuesday, August 30, it means Athletic will be in action an unprecedented eight times in this first month.

Fresh from his first clean sheet for the club against Walsall, on-loan Middlesbrough goalkeeper Connor Ripley (23) will hope to be the least busy figure for Athletic as the league and cup games rush forth thick and fast.

From the evidence so far, both at Athletic and while on loan last season at Motherwell where Robinson worked as an assistant, Ripley has all the tools to make it at the very top.

"Connor is a young boy and he can potentially be anything," said Robinson, for whom the goalkeeping position is one of few not to be causing him selection headaches of the positive kind ahead of Northampton's visit in Sky Bet League One tonight.

"For me, he is a Premier League goalkeeper in the making if his concentration levels keep on improving.

"As long as he keeps pushing himself forward, then Connor can be anything he wants to be."

FRUSTRATED

So far frustrated in his hunt for a particular Premier League striker - the hope is the identified target will sign later this week, or else sights may turn elsewhere - Robinson admits that the addition of a new forward is the only thing that is really missing from a squad that currently totals 28 professionals.

"We have tried to bring in good characters to the club, as they have to learn to deal with disappointment," the manager said.

"We can only put 11 players out on to the pitch and there will be people left on the bench who will feel they could start at times.

"That's football. With the loans system now, we can't bring in any other players so we had to get together a squad that can give us options at any given time."

New trio Ryan McLaughlin, Charles Dunne and Calaum Jahraldo-Martin are not yet up to full speed, fitness-wise.

Among those players who have featured regularly so far, Robinson feels that a greater level of mutual know-how is breeding.

"People are starting to understand what people like Lee Erwin is good at and what Paul Green is good at," he added.

"So you start to get that understanding in the team and it helps to create things in the final third.

"We have a real togetherness and spirit and the boys were disappointed after Walsall, which shows in a very short space of time how far they have come."

Athletic's early-season fixture jam brings with it nine games in the first 29 days of the campaign.

GROUP

After Carlisle (7.45pm kick-off), which is free for under-16s with a paying adult and only £5 entry for others, Athletic's second Checkatrade Trophy group game is at Fleetwood on Tuesday, October 4 (7.45pm).

A trip to face Blackburn Rovers' under-23s follows on Tuesday, November 8 (7.30pm).