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Sutton's Jamie Collins to work day job in leadup to FA Cup tie vs. Arsenal

Sutton United captain Jamie Collins will be back on the building site to prepare for the non-league minnows' fairytale FA Cup tie against Arsenal at Gander Green Lane next month.

The National League outfit claimed a place in the FA Cup fifth round for the first time in their 119-year history by defeating Championship club Leeds United on Sunday, with Collins scoring the decisive goal from the penalty spot in their 1-0 victory.

Paul Doswell's part-timers will now face 12-time winners Arsenal after being paired with Arsene Wenger's team in Monday's draw in a fixture that will be the biggest ever hosted by Sutton at their tiny 5,000-capacity stadium in southwest London.

And Collins, 32, has revealed that preparations for the next round will the same as for any National League fixture, with Sutton's players training just two days a week on their artificial pitch.

"I'm a supervisor on the building site and I drive round each job in Camden to make sure the boys are working," Collins said. "I enjoy it, it is good banter.

"It is a bit like football, you get a bit of banter and your serious time, but it breaks up the week for me.

"We train two days each week -- I work Monday, Wednesday and Friday on the building site and we train, Tuesday and Thursday here.

"Sometimes you are tired and we have got a few older lads, but if we come in not feeling the best, the gaffer [Doswell] lets us do our own little thing in training.

"He knows that, come Saturday, we are going to be on it.

"Don't get me wrong, we do work when he asks us to, but sometimes he gives us a little squeeze and lets you do your own thing.

"When you get to my age, you have got to look to the future. The football's not going to last forever, so you have to get your foot in early and get something else."

Collins has tasted FA Cup glory before having played in Havant & Waterlooville's run to the fourth round in 2008, when they were eliminated in a 5-2 defeat against Liverpool at Anfield.

Sutton's run to the fifth round has surpassed that achievement, however, and he admits that he and his teammates were always confident of defeating Leeds.

"Obviously, the last time I got to the fourth round, we played Liverpool away and lost," Collins said. "People would look back and say it was a great Cup run, but it was disappointing for us because we thought we could win.

"Now, for us to win and get into the last 16 -- and to be fair to Lincoln they have had an unbelievable run as well -- is a fantastic achievement.

"We watched Leeds play Cambridge and, no disrespect to the Under-23 League, but we knew they'd try and play tippy-tappy football and if you press the midfielders, you could see in the first half how many times our midfielders won the ball off them.

"I've played in that sort of level and when you come to non-League it is a completely different kind of experience, you don't get time on the ball, you have got people pushing right up against you and especially in the first half it showed."