Neil Harris is expecting a tough evening when he takes his Cambridge United side to Hillsborough to face Sheffield Wednesday tomorrow night.

The Owls go into the game having suffered back-to-back 2-0 defeats during League One fixtures away at Notts County and Doncaster Rovers.

The U’s, themselves, head into the fixture having seen their 10-match unbeaten run in all competitions ended at the weekend by a 3-2 home loss at the hands of Plymouth Argyle.

And Harris is eager to see a reaction against a home side that will be ‘hurting’.

The Cambridge head coach said: “It’s a great occasion, great for the football club to go to Hillsborough and great for the fanbase to take over a 1,000 – that’s all brilliant – but I want a performance now.

“I want to bounce back, and to see a (strong) mentality because we’re going up against a team that is hurting.

“They’ve had two poor results in a row, so they’ll be expecting to bounce back at Hillsborough.

“They’re going to come at us, and I know what to expect. I need to pick a team that stands up to that.”

Cambridge will arrive in Sheffield riding high in sixth place, but with some concerns over frailties at the back.

United’s promotion from League Two last term was built on being able to boast having the best defensive record across the EFL, but their sole clean sheet this season came against a Blackpool side that were reduced to 10 men after just six minutes.

Harris added: “We are in a very healthy position in the league, and we should all take solace from that and appreciate that, me probably more so than anybody.

“I’m proud of what we’ve done, but as I keep saying, we have to keep getting better.

“We’re giving poor goals away, and you can’t shoot yourselves in the foot by giving poor goals away. That’s not acceptable.

“Last year we had a wonderful defensive record after Barrow away (in November), but we’re still setting at the moment and integrating new players.

“We’ve got six players under 24 in the starting XI (against Plymouth), that’s a lot of players. We have to be patient, obviously, with younger players and give them time to bed in and learn the game, but also the levels are completely different.

“We’re talking about stepping players up from youth football or 21s football or first-team football at lower divisions, and we’ve played five of the top eight now, so we have to be respectful of the teams we’re playing against.

“You will get punished. As much as we’re scoring goals and punishing teams as well, we have to find a way to get that clean sheet mentality back in our football club.”