Wycombe Preview

By: Rob Sedgwick
Date: 04/01/2001

Grimsby boss Lennie Lawrence has pledged to ring in the changes for Saturday's FA Cup 3rd round tie against second division Wycombe Wanderers. Lawrence made it plain after the disappointing 1-0 reverse at Hillsborough that he regarded the FA Cup a distant second priority in comparison to the league.

Grimsby Town

"Anybody with the slightest hint of a knock will not play. The League comes first by a million miles" said Lawrence on Monday. Today he qualified his earlier statement saying not that he had not been misquoted, but misunderstood: "I think people took that to mean that I would be using young players for the FA Cup match at Wycombe, but by 'fringe players' I meant members of the first team squad."

Definitely out are Fostervold (loan ended), Zhang (flu), and long-term absentees Bradley Allen and Alan Pouton. Given Lawrence's frequent changes of formations and personnel in routine games, the team line up on Saturday (with an advanced changes warning from the manager) is anyone's guess! Lawrence may start with Livingstone up front alongside Nielsen in a 4-4-2 formation.

Wycombe Wanderers

The Chairboys have a injury crisis at the moment, particularly up front where veteran Andy Rammell (pictured) should return after an ear infection. The ex-Barnsley frontman will probably lead the Wycombe attack alongside youngster Danny Senda, although 21 year old forward Andy Baird is also in contention and may also feature at some stage, after having missed the last three months through injury.

Defenders Ben Townsend and Jamie Bates are still out injured, with midfielder Dave Carroll and forward Niall Thompson joining them on the injury list. Striker Sam Parkin (on loan at Adams Park from Chelsea) is ineligible for the game.

Form Guide

The two clubs have only met twice in the league before, and both matches ended 1-1, during Town's promotion season of 1997-98. Wycombe have never been beyond the 3rd round of the FA Cup, although they caused an upset in the previous round. defeating Millwall in a replay, despite the Chairboys being drawn away initially.

Wycombe, currently lying in mid-table in the 2nd division, have a good record at Adams Park, but are less successful on their travels. With a possible replay date scheduled to fall in between the Mariners crucial league games against Stockport and Crewe, both clubs will probably be looking for a win on the day.

Line-Ups

Grimsby Town: (4-4-2) (from) Coyne, Croudson, Butterfield, Gallimore, Groves, R Smith, Campbell, Burnett, Willems, D Smith, Coldicott, Donovan, Nielsen, Livingstone.

Wycombe (4-3-2-1) (from) Taylor; Rogers, Cousins, McCarthy, Vinnicombe; Simpson, Bulman, Brown Harkin, Senda; Rammell, Ryan, Castledine, Lee, Baird, Beeton.

Directions

Our counterparts at the Wycombe Rivals sites have a comprehensive guide on how to get to Adams Park. If going by train, the station is in the town centre so it's at least a two mile or 45 minute walk. The Wycombe site has details of buses to the ground, or it is around £4 for a taxi.

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