Cambridge United play at Barrow tonight before a 13-day break in fixtures, aiming to extend the current unbeaten run to eleven games and keep the pressure on leaders Burton before our period of enforced inactivity.
Following last week's wins against Burton, Mansfield and Northwich, United are currently second with 70 points from 38 games, while the Bluebirds are fourth from bottom with 36 points from 35 games.
The bookies clearly fancy our chances because the U's are odds-on favourites to win at 4/5 while Barrow are 16/5 with our online betting partners bet365, and the draw is 12/5. Click here for all the match odds.
Team News
Gary Brabin will wait until this afternoon's pre-match training session before choosing his squad for the match, with the main doubts being Andy Parkinson, who needed stitches in his ear after a clash late in Saturday's win at home to Northwich, and Dan Gleeson, who has missed training due to a knock on his knee.
However new man Lee Phillips, who has missed the last three games with a slight hamstring strain, returned to training yesterday and is available, although with Scott Rendell and Chris Holroyd both in good form he may have to wait for his chance.
The squad travelled north on Monday to have the best possible preparations for the match, and are using the facilities at Blackburn Rovers' training ground: "We're monitoring the situation with one or two players with knocks and bumps so it's ideal that we're staying in a hotel up here, which gives us a bit more time to assess how people are.
The club have backed us to travel up a day early, which I'm delighted about, and I've got friends at Blackburn Rovers who let us use their very good facilities for training, so we're preparing as well as we possibly can."
Speaking this morning, he confirmed that he will select his team later today: "We genuinely don't know how some of them are at the moment but we'll know in the next few hours. They've had a good night's sleep and we're going out for a walk and Greg (Reid) will look at everyone, but at the moment it's very unclear and we'll leave the decisions until later."
Mark Beesley will miss the rest of the season following last week's hip operation, but Mark Convery completed his second 90 minutes for CRC in the Ridgeons League in their win on Saturday and he is expected to play a couple more games with the scholars before being recalled from his loan.
The Opposition
Promoted from the Blue Square North as play-off winners last season, Barrow notched three wins in their first four games this season - with their 2-1 defeat in Cambridge the only exception - but they struggled to maintain that early form and are flirting dangerously with the relegation places at present.
Currently fourth from bottom but only a point inside the relegation zone, they have only lost four times at home in the league and a win tonight is just as important to the Bluebirds as ourselves.
"This is a tough place to come and Barrow are a strong, determined side," warned Brabin "They haven't lost at home too many times this season so they're hard to beat here, and we're expecting a tough game.
"Our preparation is very important, and not just today - it has been all season. You have to prepare right in everything you do and our preparation has been good for today, so as long as we're physically and mentally right for this game tonight I'm confident we'll get a good result."
With the U's not playing again until Monday 30th at Woking, which was put back two days for TV coverage, he added, "It would be nice to sign off with a win tonight because we haven't got another game for nearly two weeks, so it would be nice to win and keep on Burton's coat-tails and then see how the others get on between now and our next game.
"A lot of them are playing each other in the coming weeks and that's why it's important that we keep winning games. They don't come any bigger at the moment than this one tonight, and then in the next twelve days we can give a few of the lads the rest they need to clear up some little knocks and problems."
Further Information
You can learn more about the Bluebirds in Matt Gooding's 'The Other Side' article here, directions and other away travel information is here, and if you fancy a bet on our match or any other event this week please follow this link to visit our official betting partners bet365 - the place where your online betting makes money for the U's.
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