Scunthorpe Preview

[El Nombre]

Team News:

Tuesday night's match will be Lee Bullock's last in a City shirt before he joins Cardiff City on loan with a view to a permanent move in the summer. He may continue up front alongside Lee Nogan, unless boss Chris Brass decides to introduce another forward into the equation and push him back into the midfield. Should he choose the second option, Levent Yalcin and Andy Bell are standing by to break into the forward line. Liam George, however, continues to be troubled by niggling injury troubles, and Aron Wilford is currently on loan at Harrogate Town.

Player-boss Brass himself will serve the second of a four-match suspension after his red card at Boston, and City may be forced to stick with a trio of Wise, Davies and Smith at the back unless Richard Hope can recover from his injury troubles. Another option in central defence is Leigh Wood, who has been deputising at right wing-back for Darren Edmondson, but may switch roles with the skipper's imminent return.

Another returning player is midfielder Darren Dunning, following his two-match ban, and he will expect to slot into the midfield alongside two from; Justin Walker, Mitch Ward, Richard Cooper and Lee Bullock. Ward picked up a slight knock at Aggborough on Saturday, and assistant manager Nogan suffered a muscle seizure, but both are expected to be fit for the midweek clash. On the fringe of the squad, youngsters such as Graeme Law and Matthew Coad are waiting to be given a chance, and given City's dismal run of form perhaps now could be the time to offer it to them.

Likely starting line-up: Ovendale; Smith, Wise, Davies; Edmondson, Dunning, Walker, Bullock, Merris; Nogan, Bell.

Scunthorpe manager Brian Laws has a mounting injury list to worry about, but this didn't prevent his side from achieving an impressive 3-0 victory over Yeovil at the weekend. Paul Hayes is the latest addition to that list, having sustained a knee injury in training. He is joined on the sidelines by Richard Kell and Ian Kilford, both of whom are rated doubtful for the trip to Bootham Crescent. Veteran Peter Beagrie is also missing with a calf injury.

Club 'legends' Alex Calvo-Garcia and Mark Jackson are also absentees, and have both recently spent time at the National Sports Rehabilitation Centre in Lilleshall to speed their recoveries. Both came through half of last week's reserve game at Lincoln and are being gradually integrated back into the first-team setup.

Brian Laws will be reluctant to shake things up too much after such a resounding victory, and there look to be no obvious forced changes, but one player who will hope to involved at some stage is the versatile Marcus Williams, who made his debut near the end of Saturday's encounter. In total, four loanees are expected to start for the Iron, including Division Three top scorer Steve MacLean, who added two further goals on Saturday to increase his tally to nineteen for the season. The three others are Paul Groves from neighbours Grimsby, Cleveland Taylor from Bolton and Darren Holloway from Wimbledon.

Likely starting line-up: Evans, Graves, Stanton, McCombe, Sharp, Taylor, Lee Ridley, Groves, Holloway, MacLean, Torpey.


Form guide:

City last five: Mansfield (h) L 1-2, Lincoln (h) L 1-4, Boston (a) L 0-2, Oxford (a) D 0-0, Kidderminster (a) L 1-4.

Scunthorpe last five: Oxford (a) L 2-3, Lincoln (a) D 1-1, Northampton (h) W 1-0, Torquay (a) L 0-1, Yeovil (h) W 3-0.


Related links:

YorkCityFC.com Prediction League
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Scunthorpe United Official Site
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[acombred]

Just bumping this to appear above the Kidderminster preview, as El Nombre has updated it for the re-arranged fixture tomorrow