Preview: Stevenage Borough v Southend United

Well, just when we thought Tilly had his defence worked out in comes the experienced Peter Gilbert to fill the left-back position which he could share the match with John White, but White may get a half at right-back to allow Simon Francis to play centre-half with Matt Heath.



Gilbert; should be seen for the full 90 minutes at Stevenage

There is no guarantee that skipper Adam Barrett will be fit for next Saturday's league opener, though he should return to training Monday, even so someone has to play with the Colchester trailist to-night so Christophe might be seen getting a try-out there as well.

Nothing on Saah but he might be worth a short term contract to cover injuries, he looked OK in his two games for the club.

The usual suspects are still out but midfielder Lee Sawyer has joined them all with a bruised rib.

Southend United Squad: Mildenhall, Francis, Gilbert, White, Heath, Laurent, Grant, McCormack, Moussa, Barnard, Walker, Revell, Herd, Bentley, Calver, Reynolds.

Stevenage Borough boss Graham Westley insists playing against quality sides in pre-season friendlies is the right way to go even after suffering defeats at the hands of Millwall and Peterborough over the past week having played some good football.

Even so, Westley will be hoping his strikers hit the goalscoring trail in their two remaining friendlies against Southend and Woking after finding chances hard to come by recently.

Westley told the Hertfordshire Comet: "The attacking resources have been up against some really tough defences. They are not getting the confidence of scoring goals but at the same time they are going to have to learn new tricks to try and open up the defences they are playing. I'm sure the lads would prefer to be winning than losing but nonetheless I'm sure that we are learning a lot and we won't take the lessons in the wrong way. We will build ourselves up and become stronger from the lessons that we're learning.