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alex cisak: the ’keeper says Athletic will need to be at their best against MK Dons tonight.

Cisak out to impress the folks back home
ALEX Cisak has a special reason to impress for Athletic tonight — to dazzle the folks back home.

The 22-year-old goalkeeper, born in Krakow, Poland, and raised in Tasmania from an early age, goes before the cameras at Boundary Park aiming to keep a fourth clean sheet of the season in the npower League One clash against MK Dons (7.45pm kick-off).

Family members and friends in Hobart will need to be up extra-early on their Tuesday morning to catch Cisak in action via a satellite feed — the game kicks off at 5.45am, local time — but if he carries on the form shown so far this season, they will be left bleary-eyed but impressed.

“It will be good for the people back in Australia to see the standard of this league,” said the highly-rated Australia under-20 international, who feels his game is improving under the coaching of Athletic’s number two ’keeper Paul Gerrard.

“The performance we put on at Scunthorpe in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy was pleasing, especially in the first half, and I think after that we dealt with the pressure very well. I am just happy to be through to the next round.

“I have a good set of defenders in front of me and it is just silly mistakes as a group that have been costing us goals.

“The aim is simply to keep clean sheets. We defended pretty well last Tuesday and as far as that competition goes we are all keeping our feet on the ground.

“MK Dons will be a difficult game for us and we will need to be at our best. But with Deano (Furman) and Blackie (Paul Black) back from injury, the squad is falling into place and hopefully the gaffer will be left with some selection problems.”

Testing Cisak’s abilities tonight will be the likes of experienced on-loan Sheffield Wednesday forward Clinton Morrison, who scored one and created another in a 3-0 win over Notts County last week, former Yeovil and Ipswich striker Dean Bowditch and Angelo Balanta, on loan from Premier League side Queens Park Rangers.

MK Dons manager Karl Robinson has taken his side to second place in the table, despite losing talismanic striker Sam Baldock to West Ham at the end of August.

Robinson’s side lost in last season's play-off semi-finals to Peterborough but look well set to go one better this time, with his Athletic counterpart describing the team as the best he has seen in action so far.

Only one defeat has come in the league, a 3-1 loss at Sheffield Wednesday a month ago, though after a flying start the Dons have also only won one of their last six in all competitions.