Town boss Paul Jewell says he’ll mix his squad up for this week’s two friendlies against Blue Square Bet Premier sides Braintree and Cambridge. Town take on the Essex club on Tuesday at their Amlin Stadium (KO 7.45pm) and the U’s on Wednesday (KO 7.45pm).
The Braintree game had been billed as a 'Town XI' fixture, generally a sign that a reserves side would be fielded, but the Blues boss says senior members of his side will be used in both matches: "I think we’ll probably mix the teams up on Tuesday and Wednesday.
"We’ll see how are we are on Monday and we’ll take it from there.”
New signing Scott Loach will be make his first appearance for the Blues since his days in the academy in one of those matches, while Town could have another new addition in their squad by then, who we understand is a young midfielder.
Jewell admits that his squad isn’t the largest at present and so both sides are likely to include a liberal sprinkling of youngsters with the team that finished the Den Bosch friendly having a very youthful look about it: "We haven’t got the biggest squad in the world. You could see at the end we had Josh Carson, Ronan Murray, Joe Whight, young Byron and Luke Hyam, so we’ve got quite a young squad. I’ve got a lot of young players in the squad and we’ll mix it up.”
He says those youngsters will have benefited from being on the Holland tour: "I think it’s been a good experience for them to come on this trip.
"Byron’s only 16, he’s barely out of school. He’s done fine, we think he’s going to be a good player, but you’ve got to be patient with young players at times.
"People don’t realise that young players need nurturing. Sometimes it’s time to put them in, then others it’s time to give them a rest. We’ve worked the players exceptionally hard while we’ve been over here and I think you could probably see that against Den Bosch.”