Rovers Middlesbrough

[Alan75]

Once again Souness has not been able to pick his strongest team for Rovers  New Years Day match against Middlesbrough.  Due to hamstring injuries it looks as if the team will be without Short and Duff for up to 4 weeks, missing both legs of the Worthington Cup Semi Finals against Manchester United and the FA Cup match against Aston Villa.

Bjornebye is also absent from the Middlesbrough squad due to a foot injury. However on the bright side Dunn has recovered from his injury and Lucas Neill has returned to the squad following his one match suspension.

The full squad for tomorrows game according to the official site is.

Friedel, Neill, McEverley, Johansson, Taylor, Todd, Thompson, Flitcroft, Tugay, Danns, Gillespie, Dunn, Douglas, Cole, Yorke, Ostenstad, Jansen and Kelly.

The referee for tomorrows game is David Pugh from Merseyside, who reportedly has issued 13 yellow cards in the 4 Premier League games that he has officiated in this season.

Lets hope tomorrows game isnt a repeat of the away fixture when  Middlesbrough scored in the last minute to win 1-0 or a repeat of last seasons fixture when Rovers lost 1-0 to a bizarre Boksic goal.

I suspect a repeat of Rovers 9-0 defeat of Middlesbrough in the 1954-55 season is to much to ask for. For the statisticians the gate for that game was 29,189.