Manager Alun Armstrong is looking for better defending from his team for the third home pre-season game against Middlesbrough on Sunday (kick off 1pm).

Quakers lost 5-1 at home to Harrogate on Tuesday night – four of which were headers – and Alun said; “I thought we defended well in the first half when we were under the cosh, but then heads went down a little at 3-1.

“We’ve worked on a few things at training during the week. For some players, that was only their second game of pre-season, whereas Harrogate were playing their seventh. Because of Covid and pings, we have had to postpone three matches, and so we’re probably a week behind where we want to be. That difference in fitness showed at times.

“We know that there’s work to do, and we’ll get on with it.”

New signing Jake Cassidy is included in the squad after his signing was completed on Saturday.

You can watch an interview with him here:

https://darlingtonfc.co.uk/news/quakers-sign-striker-jake-cassidy

Striker Luke Charman picked up a slight knock on Tuesday but is expected to be fit, while another striker, Andrew Nelson, could have another brief outing. Nelson scored six goals in six games for us in season 2018-19 when he was on loan from Sunderland (he moved to Dundee in January 2019), and is steadily recovering from a cartilage injury sustained when he was at Torquay. 

Luke Ravenhill, son of former Darlington midfielder Ricky, will also be included -- he played 30 minutes against Harrogate in midweek.

You can listen to an interview with midfielder Alex Purver here:

https://darlingtonfc.co.uk/news/alex-purver-its-great-to-be-playing-90-minutes-again

Former Darlington centre half Graeme Lee will be in charge of the Middlesbrough squad, which includes Williams Kokolo, who played for us on loan from Sunderland three seasons ago. Boro also have a player called Andrew Nelson included in their squad.

Jack Hannah

Josh Wells

Dan Dodds

William Kokolo

Cain Sykes

Isaac Fletcher

Pharrell Willis

Isiah Cornet

Harry Green

Joe Gibson

Josh Coburn

Ste Walker

Andrew Nelson

Rumarn Burrell

Joe Ridley

Alberto Balde

Sam Folarin

Malik Dijksteel

We’d like to thank Middlesbrough for sending a team to play us.

Tickets are available here for today’s game (and the game against Sunderland on Wednesday evening)

https://yourclub.darlingtonfc.co.uk/match-tickets