Gray misses FA Cup clash as Still looks to tinker

The six-goal forward misses out along with Alex Wall, Shaun Whalley and Jon Shaw as boss John Still said: “Andre is tight around his hamstring area so he won’t be involved.

“Alex Wall come off in the development game the other night (against West Ham) as he felt his hamstring. It’s not terrible, but he won’t be involved Saturday.

“Shaun did a little bit of training today, we won’t worry about him for this weekend, but next weekend he should be okay.

“Jon Shaw is still trying to get to the next step. We don’t want to rush on though as he rushed himself a little bit before and had a problem.”

Gray’s absence will more than likely see Mark Cullen earn a recall, as he will hope to add to his five goals this campaign.

Still continued: “Mark Cullen deserves to be in the team anyway.

“All of us here think Mark is a terrific player, we really do. Whenever Mark plays, he plays on merit, he doesn’t play because I’m trying to find somewhere for him, he plays on merit.

“The competition between Mark, Andre, Paul (Benson), Alex and Shawy when he’s fit is really strong and is one of those things, whoever wasn’t in the team could look me in the eye and go why?”

There was good news regarding the likes of Jim Stevenson who left the pitch on crutches in midweek, plus Alex Lawless and Anthony Charles.

Still even hinted on a starting role for the former Histon midfielder too, as he said: “He’s fine. That (crutches) was just a precaution because it was an impact injury that they didn’t want to put any wait on for an hour, to see how it swelled. He trained today so it was fine.

“We used Jim earlier in the season just to give him a bit of time and he did very, very well.

“Jim has come on as well, I’m really pleased with him and he could well find himself starting on Saturday.”

On the other two and his thoughts on changing the side that drew 0-0 with Gateshead, Still said: “Alex Lawless has pushed on so we’ll add him to the squad, while Anthony Charles is back in training too.

“It looked a lot of changes before, I think we made six (against Woking), but they were all players who had played before.

“Whatever we do, the side will be picked to try and win, but probably a little tinker.

“It allows us just to change it at times. It’s really important to pick a team to win, I think so anyway and you utilise most of your squad.

“With that in mind, we’ll pick a team that we think can win the game, will it be different from Gateshead? Pobably a little bit. But not to the point where people look at it and think that’s a shock. It won’t be one of them.

Meanwhile, the Town boss also confirmed he may well switch goalkeepers again as he did in the last round at Woking, with Elliot Justham coming in for Mark Tyler.

He added: “We’ve done some training this morning using them both, we’ll probably do a little bit tomorrow using one, it will probably be Elliot, but we’ll make our mind up tomorrow.

“He’s done very well and it’s a good opportunity for him to get the experience he needs.

“We could come to the last half a dozen games of the season in a great position to go up, we’ve got two good goalkeepers, but if one has hardly played and he has to go and play, you’re putting a lot of pressure on someone.

“It’s good to try to find for that specialist position enough games for someone, not just cup games I might add, so that if they do have to come in at a critical time, it’s not going to be so much of a problem.”

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