Newcastle United v Scunthorpe United
at St James' Park
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - 7.45pm
The Iron head to Newcastle United on Wednesday night with at least one game in hand on their immediate Championship relegation rivals.Crystal Palace and Sheffield Wednesday failed to win on Tuesday night which means, as a result, a victory at St James' Park can see Scunthorpe climb out of the bottom three.
"Nobody's expecting us to get anything though," insists Adkins, and he looks set to adopt an attacking philosophy against the Magpies.
He also said he has one eye on Saturday's home game with Plymouth Argyle too, so there may be one or two changes from the team which narrowly, and unluckily, lost 1-0 at Ipswich Town.
Michael O'Connor returns from a three-match ban for the game with the Magpies, and he will be hoping to start having missed the 2-1 victory over the North East side at
Glanford Park earlier this season through suspension.
Cliff Byrne starts a five-match suspension after receiving his third red card of the season at Ipswich. He will be out until the away game with Swansea City on Easter Monday and Adkins says the Irishman can consider himself very unfortunate.
Adkins, speaking on
The Iron Player, said: "It is a blow for us because Cliff's a leader.
"He's the captain of the team and he's what Scunthorpe United is all about.
"He's a player who is trying to extract every ounce of potential out of his body and the ability he's got.
"I don't think he should be out, but the video of the game doesn't show the incident so unfortunately we can't appeal.
"Everybody knows it shouldn't have been a red card.
"It's a hard thing for us to take because through no fault of our own there's no video evidence there because of the way the tape is to back that up.
"We're very disappointed but there's nothing we can do about it."
Andrew Wright could replace him at right-back, although deploying
Michael Raynes there and bringing
Rob Jones in at centre-back is an option.
Gary Hooper missed the game at Ipswich through a groin strain but trained on Tuesday but Adkins was reluctant to reveal whether his leading goalscorer would be fit for the Newcastle game.
He continued: "We actually didn't disclose anything about Gary's problem and I know Ipswich worked for two days on counteracting the Hayes and Hooper combination.
"So not giving the opposition the opportunity to know what we're going to do is something we must capitalise on.
"I don't think Newcastle will be fearful of ourselves. They're a very good footballing side."
Ben May misses out, serving the second of a three match ban, while
Ian Morris (knee) also sits out.
Magpies boss Chris Hughton will make a late decision on defender Fabricio Coloccini ahead of the game.
The Argentinian suffered a dead leg in Saturday's 2-2 draw at Middlesbrough but has a chance of playing.
Full-back Danny Simpson has recovered from the knock he picked up at the Riverside Stadium but central defender Mike Williamson will be out for up to a month after breaking a bone in his hand while exercising at home.
Alan Smith (ankle) will not be risked and could instead come into contention for Saturday's trip to Bristol City, while Steven Taylor (knee) and Shola Ameobi (hamstring) remain on the sidelines.
Midfielder Joey Barton continues to miss out.
Kent official Phil Crossley will be the referee for the game.
See much more from Nigel Adkins and Andrew Wright on The Iron Player.TICKET NEWS
The Iron have sold around 1,800 tickets for the away encounter at Newcastle United on Wednesday.
The game with the Magpies at St James' Park is all-ticket, with information as follows.
Tickets are on sale from Glanford Park until 12noon on Wednesday.
Tickets are available online and from the Glanford Park ticket office now.
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NEWCASTLE UNITED (AWAY) WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17 |
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STUDENTS |
U18'S |
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£15.00 |
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