DESPITE coming up against one big-spending club after another, you are unlikely to find Phil Parkinson complaining about his lot.

Wanderers welcome Darby County, and their new £7million signing Tom Lawrence, to the Macron this afternoon.

But while the Whites boss continues to work within the EFL’s imposed restrictions, and the club’s own financial limitations, he refuses to allow an inferiority complex, or self-pity, to set in.

“We know where we are but, equally, I don’t want us to feel inferior because I feel we’ve got Championship players in the team,” he said. “We’ve got very good players so I want us to go out and say ‘yes, these have got spending power but equally we’re a good team’ and I feel the confidence is building slowly.

“I want to see our lads express themselves and play from within our structure when they’ve got the ball and do like the other night and play with the quality we showed.”

The season is still in the early stages and although Wanderers are still searching for their first Championship victory, Parkinson has yet to see anything from his rivals that has him lose sleep.

“We haven’t seen many performances where you go ‘wow, that’s fantastic’,” he said. “I think in spells against Preston the other night, Derby created quite a lot but they had four strikers on the pitch, it was very attack-minded.

“I’ve seen Sheffield Wednesday and Sunderland, that was an interesting game. But as I’ve always said since I’ve come in, English football, across the divisions, is tight. Games are tight and it’s moments of quality which separate teams or the team which is prepared to play with that intensity level can find an edge on the day. Hopefully we’ll find it’s us tomorrow.”

While Parkinson is unlikely to welcome anyone back from injury today, he did have news regarding players who starred in last season’s promotion.

“Josh (Vela) saw a specialist on Monday and he doesn’t need to have an operation but I’d say it is going to be at least a couple of months before we see Josh again.

“Wheats is still not quite right but making progress, but Sammy Ameobi is making very good progress with his knee and by the time we come back from the international break we hope he’ll be very close to playing.”