Young guns set for City call-ups

5:00pm Wednesday 31st December 2008

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WORCESTER City manager Richard Dryden is set to turn to the club’s academy in a bid to bolster his ailing squad.

Recent cut-backs have left City with a squad of just 17 but injuries to midfielder Dave Bampton and centre-half Craig Brown meant they only had four players on the bench for the 1-0 Boxing Day defeat at Newport County.

One of those was assistant boss Carl Heeley and the situation is not likely to have improved for tomorrow’s Blue Square South return against the south Wales club at St George’s Lane (3pm).

Bampton should be fit but striker Marco Adaggio is struggling with a minor knock and right-back Graham Ward, an ever-present this season, is out with a tight hamstring.

Midfielder Sam Tyack, yet to start a game this season, has been laid low through illness of late and Dryden is beginning to run out of options.

That could mean youth-team striker Dan Polan and midfielder Lee Palmer are called into the squad for the visit of Dean Holdsworth’s side.

Polan, highly-rated by youth development officer Ray Woods, and Palmer, who was occasionally drafted into the first team set-up under Andy Preece, both trained with the squad on Tuesday night.

Ward’s place in defence should be filled by Rob Davies, who replaced Adaggio for the last 17 minutes of the Boxing Day clash at Spytty Park.

Although the former West Brom midfielder is not a natural in that position, Dryden has every confidence in his players stepping up to the plate in different roles.

He said: “Because we don’t have many players in the squad, we work a lot on team shape in training so everyone knows what they have to do should they need to play out of position.”

Dryden was not pleased as City failed to earn at least a point against Newport last week. The Exiles climbed to 18th but head to Worcester with just one away win to their name all season.

“They are workman-like and they’ve got a good squad of players but we have a small squad and yet should have got something out of the game,” Dryden added.

“It was the old game of two halves. We had to dig in during the first period and had them camped in for long periods in the second-half.

“I am still trying to work out how we didn’t score in the second 45 minutes.”

Worcester have arranged a pitch inspection for 10am tomorrow morning ahead of the clash with Newport.