The young Blues will step out at the Academy Stadium against the Ukrainians buoyed by back-to-back wins in the Checkatrade Trophy over Tranmere and Premier League 2 against Blackburn.
Now Harsley is urging his players to replicate that fine form on the European stage where, so far, City have not been at their best.
After disappointing losses to Lyon and Hoffenheim, City secured a 1-1 draw away at Shakhtar a fortnight ago and the manager wants his players to kick-on and register a vital three points in Group F.
“The last couple of games have given us a nice little platform going into face Shakhtar. It’s a big game and we know that we need to win, and we certainly intend to give it our best shot,” Harsley.
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“Looking at Europe so far I think a bit of luck has gone against us at times. We’ve chased a couple of games and ended up conceding goals late on which have made the results look bad when actually it has been more to do with us looking to get something out of the game.
“We’re looking forward to it. We played Shakhtar a few weeks ago over in Kharkiv so we know what we are coming up against.
“Though Felix is suspended after his red card last time out there is strong competition for places and we’ll put a team out there that we think can win the game.
“All we’re doing is concentrating on ourselves. We can only win the game and hope that things go in our favour elsewhere.
“Then we go to Lyon and if we can get the right result on Wednesday and they don’t it could be game on.
“We’re not in the position we wanted to be in, but we can only give it our best shot. We’re positive and we’ll give it everything that we’ve got.”
As well as securing a place in the Checkatrade Trophy last 32 and then rising up to fifth place in the Premier League 2 standings, the victories over Tranmere (1-0) and Blackburn (3-0) also registered back-to-back clean sheets for Harsley team.
And the boss garnered almost as much satisfaction from that as the results themselves.
“The really pleasing aspect from Saturday was keeping the clean sheet. Being ultra-critical, I think we’ve played much, much better and lost,” Harsley added.
“But overall I was really pleased with the result. It was the second successive clean sheet for us which considering we haven’t had one all season up to date is really good and it gives us something to build on for Wednesday.”
