Cambridge United hit the road for only the second time in a month when they travel to Eastbourne Borough on Saturday.

The U's will be looking for back-to-back wins after Danny Crow's late goal sealed a 1-0 home win against Chester on Tuesday. United are currently 10th in the table with 32 points from 22 games, while Eastbourne are 20th with 20 points from their 22 games.

Our online betting partners bet365 make the U's favourites to win at 5/4, with Eastbourne at 9/5 and the draw at 12/5. Click here for all the match odds.

Team News

As reported here yesterday, Martin Ling has recalled striker Mark Beesley 48 hours before the end of his loan at Chester due to mounting illness and injury problems in the squad.

Beesley trained with the U's squad yesterday but a number of other players were missing through illness and injury.

Dan Gleeson will miss out again with a calf injury, while fellow full-back Anthony Tonkin is still suffering from the virus that kept him out of Tuesday's match and is rated very unlikely to play. Paul Carden, Danny Potter and Danny Crow all missed training through illness and although Carden and Potter are expected to play at Eastbourne Crow is rated only 50/50.

Rory McAuley was substituted before half-time on Tuesday with a cut on his eyelid but he is fully recovered and will continue at right-back in place of Gleeson, while Wayne Hatswell is available again after serving a one-match suspension.

McAuley is expected to continue along with Darryl Coakley in the full-back positions, and Martin Ling said, "When the young lads have come in they've done a decent job for us. It's unfortunate because we were on a really good run without injuries and suspensions but now we've had a run of them and it's hit us quite hard, but we've managed to cope.

"A very young back four kept a clean sheet on Tuesday, sometimes more by luck than judgement if I'm honest, but we did keep a clean sheet and they all did a decent job. I was more worried about our play going forward than defending on Tuesday."

Ling explained that recalling Beesley just before the end of his loan was mainly due to the mounting illness and injury problems within the squad, rather than the situation at Chester, whose future was in doubt until they lodged funds with the Football Conference yesterday.

"Mark said it was getting a bit fraught up there and wasn't really working smoothly, but it was more to do with the fact that Danny Crow has gone down ill and Mark was due back on Monday anyway. Playing regularly has done him good because he looked sharp yesterday."

The Other Side

Eastbourne's squad includes two faces familiar to United fans, with striker Liam Enver-Marum likely to feature in the game but former U's skipper Danny Brown will miss out after collecting his tenth booking of the season in mid-week.

Eastbourne are currently one place above the relegation zone and Ling is expecting a tough battle, but called on his patched-up team to improve on Tuesday's performance, when the patched-up United side failed to deal with Chester's five-man midfield and stifling tactics until Crow's last-gasp goal.

"Eastbourne's results have been decent this season, although I think it's fair to say they're always going to be competing towards the bottom of this league and I think they'd agree with that," he said.

"They have conceded a lot of late goals and that might come down to fitness levels, but I'm more interested in how we start games rather than having to fight our way from two-goal deficits too often.

"We didn't start well against Chester so we've been looking at aspects of that and how we can change that, and as a manager you always question yourself and ask 'did we do things right?'. On Tuesday we got away with it by going with an attacking formation and luckily nicking a goal right at the end, but that covers the cracks.

"Against York we played really well and got absolutely nothing and we played poorly on Tuesday and got three points so it definitely levels itself out over a season. Winning becomes a habit and you have to become resolute as a side and be able to grind those wins out when things aren't going so well, so it was pleasing to do that on Tuesday, especially with all the upheaval in the side."

Ling added, "Mark (Beesley) played Eastbourne at Chester last weekend so he's given us some insight into them and we've used all the avenues to know as much about them as possible.

"They're used to battling out results so we know we'll have to battle to get something from the game. Tomorrow will be the halfway point of the season and we're eight points off the play-offs so it's all to play for. We have to be professional and impose ourselves on them," he warned.

"I've also got to remind them of what happened of those games at Grays and Hayes because sometimes it's easy to play in the bigger atmosphere and the bigger grounds, but we've got to be able to do that wherever we play."

More information

You can learn more about the Sports in Doug Shulman's 'The Other Side' article, directions and ticket details are here, and if you fancy a bet on our match or any other event this weekend visit our official betting partners bet365 - the place where your online betting makes money for the U's.

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