Costly Injury!

Elvis Costello, who picked up a thigh injury in United's trip to St James gate, Dublin in July and duly missed most of pre-season, has had a recurrence of the injury and he misses the match tomorrow against the 'hatchet' men. Jordan Baker, who had to come off last Saturday as well, looks like the obvious replacement if fully fit but having 5 players out of the 9 that were missing last Saturday available for selection, maybe Spike and his backroom staff will have other ideas. We at 'Sport were debating whether they're going to carry a substitute keeper, which restricts their options on the bench or go for broke and return the 'missing five' to a place on the bench.

Spike's sets a great store on loyalty and he emphasises that if people come in and perform well, he'll see no reason for dropping them. We at 'Sport won't be surprised if picks the same side as last week, minus Elvis and two or three youngsters could retain their place on the bench. So that only means two or three players of the five getting the nod in the panel. The most talented player is Alan D and he has to get a place on the bench and Tony 'Psycho' Kane, like or hate him, has to be the most versatile. Of the other 3, Rodgers, Thompson and Sparky, Gary Thommo gets our vote because he tweeted before last Saturday's game, how he was gutted that he was missing it and so they all should be (our words), but he was the only one who expressed his regret.

The Crues are missing Owen's and Coates and it will be interesting to see how they cope with Jamie D's pace and the quicksilver runs of Cush. On paper it looks a tough match, but if we can upset their rhythm as we did against Linfield we think we'll come away with the right result. They had a match in midweek and they bound to be feeling the strain of two defeats in a row so we need to hit them early and often. As Seaview is quite narrow maybe Spike will opt for a more attacking 4,3,3 which could mean promoting either Thommo or Alan D and omitting Cookie from the defence and Arch moving to his more accustomed back-four position. Whatever plan Spike and his henchmen come up, it will be all systems go for 3 points, so come United. let's shag those paper tigers!