LES PARRY favours the light touch and a sprinkling of FA Cup excitement to lift his Tranmere squad this week.

A 4-1 home defeat to Swindon Town left the long-serving physio disappointed in the team’s performance for the first time since he became caretaker manager just under a month ago.

But Parry won’t be hammering the players with extra work. And he is confident the prospect of an FA Cup first-round tie at home to Leyton Orient on Saturday will provide the stimulus to brighten the mood of the squad.

Parry said: “We could approach this week by punishing the lads, running them hard and letting them know we were unhappy with the performance against Swindon.

“Or we could go the other way, keep things a bit light and try to lift them.

“No doubt most of the players will be down because of their own personal performances last Saturday. So we are going to try and lift them. We are not going to batter them.”

Parry added: “The FA Cup is one of the reasons why it won’t be difficult to lift the players. The Cup is fantastic. It does create a different mood around the place. All of this week, building up to Saturday, the lads will be a bit more nervous than normal in preparing for a game.

“The Cup is special like that, it does not matter who we are playing.”

Tranmere’s third defeat in four matches under the direction of Parry and coaches Shaun Garnett and Wayne Allison, increased the pressure on the board of directors to appoint a long-term successor to John Barnes, who was sacked on October 9.

Former Derby County and Wigan Athletic manager Paul Jewell and Ray Mathias, Tranmere’s longest serving player – with a previous spell as manager at Prenton Park already under his belt – have been linked with the post.

Parry was able to find some positive aspects to Tranmere’s performance against Swindon after watching a DVD recording of the game three times on Sunday.

He said: “During the first 30 minutes of the match the lads did everything that was asked of them and even after that, there were some good periods of play from us. But unfortunately they were intermingled with us switching off and giving silly goals away.”

Parry added: “For some reason on Saturday we stopped playing the style football that got us some good performances. We started trying to out-football a footballing side.

“We have been turning opposing teams but we hardly turned Swindon at all. In fact, they were turning us constantly, especially in the second half. They did us at our own game and we were not able to cope with it.”

The excitement of the Cup is also rubbing off on the younger players at Prenton Park. Tranmere’s under-18s face an FA Youth Cup first-round tie at home to Farsley Celtic tonight, kick-off 7.30pm.

Parry said: “There is a buzz around the place for the FA Youth Cup as well. The younger lads are keen to do well in it.”

Admission tonight is £3 for adults and £2 for concessions.