King’s Lynn Town are unlikely to change their philosophy at Port Vale – because manager Ian Culverhouse doesn’t believe he has players willing to adopt a negative approach.

In a season when promoted Lynn are regarded as underdogs most weekends, the FA Cup first round tie has pitted them against a Vale side positioned nicely in the League Two play-off positions and on the back of a three-game winning run.

With no replays – if the match is level at 90 minutes it goes straight to penalties – there is no incentive to bring Vale back to an empty Walks stadium. And Culverhouse isn’t keen on playing safe and hitting the hosts on the break as he plots a major cup upset.

“If you break it down into sections during the game, the first 15 is going to be massive to us,” he said. “We have to stay in the game as much as possible. Then the second 15, you try to get on the ball, and try and play our way, so you try and break it down all the way through. I don’t think we are a team that can go there and sit, I don’t think that is in our DNA so I would like to go there, personally, and look to put a performance in and try and be competitive. I won’t say we won’t but I can’t see us just sitting back and trying to nick something on the break.

“We are just treating it as another game really, against a really, really good side. We’ve had them watched a couple of times and you can see on their league position they are finding form at the right time, so we have a lot of work to do, but it is going to a Football League club – lovely stadium, lovely old football club – and trying to compete with them. That is all we can do.

“We have got a couple of reports on them and obviously they got a good win at the weekend (winning 2-0 at Southend), but we are treating it no differently whatsoever. It is just another game for us that we will try and go into and be as competitive as we can.”

Culverhouse will again be without right-back Aaron Jones, who has a knee injury which is likely to keep him out for another week or two, while striker Kairo Mitchell is cup-tied. Ross Barrows is likely to continue in defence, with Dayle Southwell the option up front if Culverhouse goes with two strikers.