Shrewsbury must be 'professional' at Sutton - Lloyd

Shrewsbury Town striker George Lloyd has underlined the important of having a "professional" attitude to Saturday's FA Cup second round tie against Sutton United and treating their opponents as if they are in the same division.

For the second round in succession, Salop are playing a side from outside the English Football League as they travel to the VBS Community Stadium for the tie which will be live on BBC Two (17:15 GMT).

After beating National League North side South Shields 3-1 in the first round, Town take on fifth-tier Sutton, 22 places below them in the football pyramid.

"You've got to go there with the mindset that they're not in a different division," Lloyd told BBC Radio Shropshire.

"It would be easy to say 'we should be beating these because that's what it says on paper', but there's only one league between us and it is going to be difficult."

Lloyd, who says the mood in the Shrewsbury camp is "pretty positive" after their 3-3 draw against Gillingham kept them a point clear of the relegation zone in League Two, has experienced the rewards and upsets the FA Cup can provide.

During his time at Cheltenham, the Robins landed a plum fourth-round home tie against a star-studded Manchester City in 2020-21.

Leading 1-0, they came within nine minutes of a massive shock before City scored three times to crush Lloyd's hopes.

"It was weird because it was Covid and there were no fans. It felt like a massive game but there was no atmosphere and that probably helped us," Lloyd said.

"It was a class game and they had a lot of big boys playing and brought some on from the bench when they needed to and finished the job on us

"But we took them to the end so that was really good."

Lloyd was also in the Cheltenham side that suffered a shock defeat by seventh-tier Alvechurch three seasons ago.

"I've been on both sides of it but as long as you stay professional, you usually get the job do so that's what we need to do," he said.

"Everyone wants a banana skin. [Neutrals] always wants the underdog to win but you have to put that out of your mind. We have a job to do - win the game and if we don't stay professional it could be a hard day."