AARON Nell hopes to benefit from a siege mentality within the Swindon Wildcats camp as they prepare for their toughest weekend of their season.

The Cats face three fixtures against two of the top sides in the English Premier League table, away and home to leaders Basingstoke Bison tonight and on Sunday, with a trip to third-placed Milton Keynes Lightning tomorrow.

They will have to do all that without up to four players as well, with netminder Stevie Lyle and Polish import Tomasz Malasinski away on international duty and Corey McEwen and Matt Selby potentially sidelined through injury.

Although player/coach Nell admits a tough weekend is in store for the Cats, he knows his team will work harder than ever before.

“We are going to take it one game at a time,” said Nell. “The pressure is off us this week, we are missing our two best players (Lyle and Malasinski).

“We haven’t set a target. Of course we want to win every game we play, but we know that’s never going to be more difficult than this weekend.

“What we have got to do is just stick together and work hard as a team and give everything for each other out on the ice.

“We’re just thinking about Basingstoke at the moment and they are a very good team. I think that’s the biggest danger about them, they are a team.

“They come to play hard as a unit and we have to match that.

“We have to be ready for a hard, tough game.”

D-man Selby has missed the Cats’ last three fixtures, with the club acting cautiously over possible concussion issues, while forward McEwen has sat out two with a leg injury.

The duo will be assessed before the Cats travel to Planet Ice this evening and Nell says Swindon have the squad to cope should they be unavailable.

“We are not sure about those two yet. If we are missing four players then we will deal with that,” said Nell.

“We have got a big squad of players. We have had four lines all year and it just means that guys will be getting more time on the ice, which I’m sure they won’t be complaining about.

“Having Stevie and Tomasz away does make things tough but you have to look at the bigger picture.

“You never want to stop players playing for their countries and it’s good for the club that we’ve got players good enough to play international ice hockey.”