Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Friday 14 March 2003

14 March 2003

An early edition of the Diary today, as I'm being dragged off to a wedding this afternoon, and am not entirely happy about it if truth be told. The difference between weddings on Fridays and football on Fridays, as far as the Diary is concerned, is that at least football is OK on other days. Well, usually.

So to the team news for tomorrow's fairly important home game against Watford, and Town may stick with the starting XI that performed so well against Forest on Monday night. Midfield scapegoat Stacy Coldicott is still feeling his achilles, as it were, and Michael Boulding is still knackered; but Darren Mansaram, Richard Hughes and John McDermott should all overcome minor niggles to play, reckons BBC Humber Sport. Paul Groves' major quandary should, then, be whether to redeploy at Blundell Park the 4-5-1 formation that has worked superbly in the last two away games.

Watford defender Sean Dyche is set to play, despite being struck in the face this week while playing for the reserves by an elbow not believed to be Steve Livingstone's. Despite having reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup, the Hertfordshire side are without a win in five league games, which makes them odds-on favourites to take all three points tomorrow.

Jason Gavin has joined second division strugglers Huddersfield (see where a new ground can get you?) on a month's loan. The Middlesbrough defender, who passed a similar spell with the Mariners in December, trialled with Sheffield United recently; but the Blades decided not to try and sign the player after realising that Town never actually wanted to keep him.

Right, that's it. Get me to the church on time and all that. For its part, the Diary remains married to Town, for better and for worse. And we all know which it usually is.