McCarthy to Freshen-Up Team at Yeovil Tuesday, 11th Mar 2014 06:00 Boss Mick McCarthy is likely to make a handful of changes to freshen-up his team for tonight's game at Yeovil but has said there won’t be a wholesale switch of personnel despite the busy March fixture programme. The Blues manager, whose side hasn't won away since the Boxing Day victory at Doncaster, has confirmed that Dean Gerken will keep his place in goal, but may be considering giving full-back Frazer Richardson his first start for the club against the Glovers. The 31-year-old loanee impressed McCarthy playing at centre-half for the U21s last week, while Luke Chambers was given a difficult game at right-back at Middlesbrough, Richardson’s parent club. Elsewhere in the defence, the Christophe Berra-Tommy Smith central defensive partnership is likely to continue with Aaron Cresswell at left-back. The Town boss could continue with the 4-4-2 formation the Blues switched to in the second half at Boro with Yeovil utilising the same system. Luke Hyam could come in from the start in the centre alongside Cole Skuse with new loanee Jonny Williams perhaps starting on the left - although Stephen Hunt will be looking for a recall in that role - and Paul Green on the right. Up front, Frank Nouble misses out with a hamstring strain. McCarthy has said Sylvan Ebanks-Blake is ready to make a start but may decide to give Paul Taylor another chance alongside Daryl Murphy with the former Wolves man coming off the bench in the second half. Midfielder Anthony Wordsworth is out with a back problem, while 16-goal top scorer David McGoldrick is the Blues’ only long-term absentee with a partially torn medial knee ligament. McCarthy is a fan of his Yeovil counterpart Gary Johnson and says it won’t be an easy game with the 22nd-placed Glovers battling for Championship survival. “Gary’s a very capable manager as has been proven throughout his career, and certainly last year, getting Yeovil promoted,” he said. “He’s taken some loan players who have made a difference. They’re in that bottom three and they’re scrapping, they’re fighting for their lives. “I’ve seen that where teams are almost playing with gay abandon, they’ve got nothing to lose because they’re in the bottom three anyway and at that moment in time they’re going down. “They can be dangerous teams to play when it’s like that. I’ve played in teams in that bottom three, I’ve managed teams in the bottom three and all of a sudden you get this surge of form and performances, which if you’d had them all season long you wouldn’t be there anyway. “It’s a notoriously difficult place to go to anyway and it’s made even more difficult by the fact that they’re playing the way they are.” Having masterminded Town’s escape from the relegation zone last year, McCarthy is well-placed to give advice on what a side needs to do to dig itself out of trouble. “Being hard to beat is one thing because if you’re not losing games you’ve always got a chance if you keep picking up points,” he said. “Remember last year, we came off at Millwall and we got a point in one of the most turgid, horrible games I’ve ever seen. “I said to TC coming off ‘That’s a good point, that’ and we walked into the dressing room and Peterborough had won, all the others around us had won and we were suddenly three points from the relegation zone again and playing Leicester on the Saturday. "We beat them and the others lost. So, that weekend, when I thought we got such a valuable point at Millwall and everybody else won, that point ultimately did turn out to be a valuable point. “Just keep picking them up and don’t get too carried away if you win one and don’t get too disappointed if you lose one - be consistent.” The Blues boss says the bottom of the table is currently just as tight as it was then: “As I said last year the league is bonkers. “Barnsley would have come off at the weekend absolutely jubilant after beating Nottingham Forest and then they would have looked across at the results and seen that Yeovil have beaten the form team Sheffield Wednesday, who have been flying, and Millwall have gone up to Derby and beat them, who have been on an unbelievable run. “And then it’s the same at the top. Coming off on Saturday I thought we might be out of it, but all the others have dropped points and we’re not. “I thought before the game that if we got beaten and all the others win we could just about wave goodbye to it, but we’re still only four points away from it. All right, they’ve got games in hand, but they’ve got to win them.” He says he wouldn’t have expected Town to be where they are now a year ago while they were in the midst of the relegation fight: “If you’d have said to me this time last year that we would be four points off the top six [at this point] I might have hoping that that was going to be the case, although a little bit surprised. “But having had the players I’ve had and the squad and the way they’ve played, I’m now not surprised. I’ve said all along, I think we should have been better off but then I'd guess every other manager will be saying they should have more points.” He added: “We could end up in sixth still, although we’re making it harder and harder, as are all the teams around there. “Nottingham Forest looked home and hosed for one of the top six places, but they’re endeavouring to not get in there. “I guess teams are all getting injuries, squads are changing, people are fighting for different things, people are fighting for their lives at the bottom. “It’s funny that, when you’re fighting for your life or fighting for your dinner, it’s somewhat different, as we found out last year when we were scrapping for our Championship life. “Nobody liked playing against us, not that that’s changed, we’re still fighting but for different things. It’s a tough league.” As of yesterday, Town had sold 877 for tonight’s game (tickets are available on the gate with a £2 increase) and McCarthy paid tribute to the Blues’ away following: “They’ve been amazing and those that travelled on Saturday, I hope we give them a better performance and something to shout about. “What’s nice about our lads is that I don’t think anybody could say they’ve travelled away and seen a lacklustre performance in terms of effort or genuine enthusiasm or willingness to play or have a go. But we didn’t play well on Saturday, so hopefully we can do well on Tuesday.” Glovers boss Johnson was delighted with the 2-0 victory over Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday and with his side’s recent run of five games without a defeat. “We had a lot of commitment out there and a lot of effort,” he told the Yeovil club site. “Sheffield Wednesday were in a rich vein of form themselves so it’s nice to go five unbeaten — three draws, two wins — with another home game coming up again on Tuesday against Ipswich. “It’s still very tight with all the other teams getting results as well but we’re certainly in there and we probably have dragged a few other teams in towards us, so instead of four teams it’s probably six or seven now in the mire at the bottom.” Glovers striker Kieffer Moore will be back after a one-match ban having been one of the three players sent off in the recent 1-1 draw at Reading. On-loan Cardiff midfielder Joe Ralls was also given his marching orders against the Royals and will serve the second game of his two-match suspension. The third red-carded player was defender Byron Webster, whose dismissal was overturned on appeal. Striker Ishmael Miller, who has scored seven goals in 13 games since joining on loan from Nottingham Forest, came off with 20 minutes to go having scored both goals in the victory over the Owls but, despite having had ice on his hamstring, is expected to be fit enough to face the Blues. Midfielder Liam Davis has a foot injury, while loanee John Lundstram was recalled by Everton yesterday. Another midfielder Sam Foley has joined Shrewsbury Town on loan. In September at Portman Road, in the first ever Football League game between the sides, Daryl Murphy and Aaron Cresswell netted second-half goals as the Blues came behind to beat Yeovil 2-1. Winger Joel Grant put the visitors ahead with a stunning strike from the edge of the box two minutes before the break, but Murphy scraped home from close range on 53 and Cresswell added the second seven minutes later. Prior to that, the Blues hadn’t played Yeovil in a league game since the teams were in the Southern League back in 1937/38 when the West Country club were known as Yeovil and Petters United. Town played the Glovers four times in Southern League matches during that period, winning two and drawing two. The teams also met in the FA Cup in 1937/38, Yeovil winning a home first round tie 2-1, while a Carling Cup first round tie at Portman Road in 2005/06 ended 2-0 to the visitors. Tonight’s match is the Blues’ first at Huish Park, their last visit to the Glovers having been at their previous home, Huish Athletic Ground, which was known as just Huish, with its famous sloping pitch, the game ending in a 1-1 draw. Yeovil keeper Marek Stech spent time on trial with Town in 2011 when a West Ham player, while winger Joel Grant held talks with the Blues last summer before eventually joining the Somerset side after leaving Wycombe. Yeovil’s 21-year-old left-back Nathan Ralph was a schoolboy with the Town academy before joining Peterborough’s youth set-up and then the Glovers in the summer of 2012. Blues assistant manager Terry Connor spent 1993/94 playing at Huish Park, while Glovers boss Johnson started his managerial career in Suffolk with Newmarket Town. Tonight’s referee is Simon Hooper from Wiltshire, who has shown 106 yellow cards and four red in 27 games so far this season. Hooper’s last Town game was the 3-0 home victory over Crystal Palace in April last year in which he booked four Blues and three visiting players. Squad from: Gerken, Loach, Chambers, Richardson, Cresswell, Mings, Smith, Berra, Skuse, Hyam, Green, Tabb, Bishop, Hunt, Anderson, Edwards, Williams, Taylor, Murphy, Ebanks-Blake.
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