Ian Harte has apologised to Marcus Stewart for his outrageous overacting which saw the Town striker sent off in the Town-Leeds game in February. Town captain Matt Holland had words with the Leeds full-back while the two were away with Ireland last week.

Harte also got a hard time from other Ireland players over his recent tumbling antics with Roy Keane mentioning the Fabien Barthez incident from the Manchester United game. Holland said: I had a word with Ian that's for sure and he has apologised. He said he did get caught by Marcus but admitted it was no way as bad as his reaction."

There have been a spate of Harte dives over the last few months and this had not gone unnoticed by the Irish players, Holland again: "He has done it a few times and a few of the lads were giving him stick about it."

However, Matty, true to form, still reckons Harte is a nice bloke: "He did apologise and he is a nice enough lad and I get on with him."

We're not convinced Marcus Stewart would agree with him.

Gérard Houllier has said he is confident that the Premier League will change the date of the Town-Liverpool game. Houllier, Phil Thompson and Rick Parry went off to the FA yesterday to try to persuade them to move the April 10th fixture originally set for April 7th and moved due to Liverpool's FA Cup semi against Wycombe.

The Liverpool manager said: "We were given a warm welcome and we had an extremely constructive and positive meeting. I think the Premier League understood our problem. They have said they will try and find a solution and I am sure they will. For the moment we just have to wait."

Liverpool have four fixtures in eight days during early April, but there are few other alternative weeks for the Town game. Stories in Liverpool have for some while pointed to April 25th as a possible date, but Town could theoretically have three players away on international duty that day with Iceland (Hreidarsson), Ireland (Holland) and the Netherlands (Reuser) all with World Cup games.

A date in May seems the most likely should the game move, possibly somewhere in the two week gap between Town's Manchester City and Derby matches. We understand that Town are to accept the Charleston Battery's offer of a game in the States and this may well be scuppered by an again re-arranged Liverpool fixture.

However, Town are determined that the game will not move, Director of Communications Alesha Gooderham said yesterday: "We will strongly object to any efforts to have the game changed once more."

With the game not long off arrangements have already been made for the April 10th fixture, Alesha Gooderham again: "We want to minimise disruption to our supporters, not cause them more inconvenience."

However, we have seen already this season that when big clubs wave their sticks the FA jump.

Jamie Clapham is back in training after the ankle knock he picked up in training at the end of last week. With Richard Naylor back in the reserves, John Scales fit again and long-term ankle injury man Guillermo Graaven back playing Town have a virtually empty injury list.

Of the first teamers only Gary Croft is still out, suffering with his medial ligament problem aggravated again last week. Jim Magilton also misses out at the Dell on Monday as he is suspended for shouting at Andy D'Urso after the Chelsea match earlier in the season. Titus Bramble returns from his suspension after he reached ten bookings.

Photo: Action Images

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