SKIPPER Graham Hyde is poised to make his first Worcester City start in almost a month as Andy Preece strives to piece together his best midfield.

Veteran Hyde missed City's previous four Nationwide North games with influenza, his last appearance coming as a substitute in the FA Trophy success over Hayes.

But the 35-year-old is available for tomorrow's St George's Lane clash against Kettering Town after completing 90 minutes in Wednesday's 1-1 Central Conference reserve draw with Burton Albion.

Shabir Khan also played for the duration, giving him an outside chance of stealing the left-back jersey from Les Hines, although the returning Hyde may prove the biggest boost for manager Preece.

Hyde provides extra bite in midfield and his battling qualities are admired by Poppies boss Kevin Wilson, who made a cheeky bid to land the ex-Sheffield Wednesday ace back in September.

Whether Hyde features or not, Preece is still looking to mould his favourite three-man midfield.

City's back three and wing-backs are generally unchanged from game to game, as is the forward line of Leon Kelly and Adam Webster, but no midfield line-up has ever stayed constant for four successive matches.

There are more options in the centre of the park than other departments, with seven recognised midfielders on Worcester's books, but Preece admits he would prefer a settled unit.

"Until two or three people put their hat on it and do enough to say they should be in the team every game, then it may get swapped and changed about," said Preece.

"We've got good midfielders and we can change the system about a bit. Against Stafford, we pushed George Clegg on and Leon to the other side. I think that worked. It would be nice to settle it down there, but that's up to the players to force me to pick them again and again."

There are injury doubts for City with centre-half Chris Smith (knee), Liam McDonald (hip) and Preece (calf) all facing late tests, while Webster's ankle was badly swollen in mid-week after picking up a knock against Stafford.

Worcester held the league leaders twice in the space of seven days, but badly need points as they lie just outside the relegation zone on goal difference above Vauxhall Motors and Hednesford.

Fortunately, they could not have picked a better time to face Kettering, who beat City 2-1 on the opening day of the season. But they are struggling following the highly-publicised departure of Paul Gascoigne.

The visitors are without a league win in eight and claim just one victory on their travels all season at Lancaster back in August. Preece said: "Kettering have gone through a difficult period. Kevin Wilson did well at the start of the season and things were going really well.

"Gazza then came in and they did okay in that spell before they had the well-documented problems.

"Kevin has come back in, starting all over again, and he is in the process of making Kettering a good team. I've seen he is already making progress."

Preece added: "We've got to win a couple of games and it would be nice to start tomorrow. We must make sure we put in the sort of performance we produced against Stafford."