Town look likely to be without Gavin Williams when they take on Lazio in Friday evening's friendly after the midfielder injured a groin in training (KO 8pm). Better news is that Owen Garvan is over his tendinitis and will start.

Garvan and striker Alan Lee are short on games and are also likely to play some part in the reserve friendlies at Cambridge United (Saturday, 3pm) and Bury Town (Tuesday, 7.45pm). Lee has been pencilled in as a starter at Cambridge with the Blues expected to play a team stronger than the one which lost 2-0 to Grays on Tuesday.

Boss Jim Magilton plans to field a side as near to his first 11 against Lazio, restored to Serie A on appeal earlier this week. The Italians announced a squad for their pre-season games in Austria and against Town a fortnight ago.

The Lazio game is one of two friendlies which were arranged in the deal which took Matteo Sereni back to Italy in the summer of 2003. The Cambridge match was organised as part of the agreement which saw young central defender Russell Short leave the Abbey Stadium for the Town academy a year ago.

French trialists Yannick Laup, 19, and Faycar Fajr, 17, have both left the club with Town having no plans to ask them to return. FC Dieppe striker Laup netted in last Friday's 6-0 friendly victory over Southwold.

Town: Scott Barron, Dean Bowditch, Billy Clarke, Darren Currie, Jason De Vos, Nicky Forster, Owen Garvan, Danny Haynes, Alan Lee, Richard Naylor, Sam Parkin, Jaime Peters, Lewis Price, Matt Richards, Sito, Shane Supple, Ian Westlake, Fabian Wilnis.

Lazio: Angelo Peruzzi, Matteo Sereni, Marco Ballotta, Tommaso Berni, Simone Santarelli, Massimo Oddo, Luciano Zauri, Manuel Belleri, Guglielmo Stendardo, Sebastiano Siviglia, Lorenzo De Silvestri, Emilson Cribari, Riccardo Sonetto, Roberto Baronio, Massimo Mutarelli, Alberto Quadri), Christian Ledesma, Christian Keller, Daniele Greco, Stefano Mauri, Valon Behrami, Gaby Mudingayi, Fabio Firmani, Christian Manfredini, Goran Pandev, Tommaso Rocchi, Igli Tare, Guilherme Siqueira, Simone Inzaghi.

Photo: Action Images

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