Ian Burchnall feels Notts County will face a Weymouth side "fighting for their lives" as he urged his players to take responsibility for dictating the tempo of the National League clash.
The Magpies are in fine form heading into the game at Meadow Lane having suffered just one defeat in their last six games. With a play-off spot looking a good bet for a third consecutive season, hopes are high that Notts can build some momentum due to a favourable run-in which sees them face a host of teams in the lower half of the table.
Weymouth, who are second from bottom in the table, are first up this weekend, but head coach Burchnall concedes the visitors will not want to be too expansive given their position.
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"Against King's Lynn we had a lot of runs ahead of the ball," he said. "We moved the ball with tempo and changed the pace when we went forwards
"We know that when we play teams lower down like Weymouth for example, then I would be very surprised if they come and play in an expansive game from minute one.
"We have to understand where they are at. They are fighting for their lives so they are going to try to make it as difficult as possible and stop us from doing what we want to do. There are definitely games where there is an onus on us to take responsibility for the tempo and intensity. That's on us. I thought we did it well against King's Lynn and we are going to have to do that consistently now."
Burchnall has not ruled out rotating his starting 11 in the coming weeks in anticipation of reaching the play-offs in order to give players as many minutes as possible.
Kyle Cameron and Richard Brindley are still out injured, but there could be scope for Jim O'Brien and other members of the squad to be given a start to improve their game time. And Burchnall said it is best to be prepared after revealing how their last play-off campaign was hit by injuries to two key players.
"Last season we were on a really good run but we then hit the play-offs and Jim O'Brien was injured, Jake Reeves was in a really bad way and we ended up moving Enzio Boldewijn in and playing him as a midfielder," he said.
"We were a little bit unbalanced and it didn't help us in those play-off games really, certainly the second one. The more minutes that everybody can have the better. If we end up in the quarter-finals of the play-offs we are going to have two games in a short period of time.
"We are going to demand from a lot of players that they are ready so I think we can use the next period of games to make sure players are ready and they have minutes in them."
