There will no doubt be a sense of relief wash over everyone at the prospect of a trip to Rochdale; in our eyes it is still a gloriously unpretentious Lancashire mill town, with decent pubs and memorable chippies, and a football ground where the chances of having your knackers tickled in the name of sport are remote, in the extreme. I think I can be allowed to describe the place thus, being myself descended from the Standrings, a line of Rochdale tailors going back to Cromwell's time, and beyond.

After having his squad squeezed until its eyes watered by injury and suspensions, Lee Richardson has caused a bit of a stir with a couple of signings during the week. Luke Boden has arrived on loan from Sheffield Wednesday; while the Football League have approved the deal the Monopolies Commission might want to look into it, since we now have 100% of all Bodens playing League footy on our books. The exotic-sounding Val Teixeira came to us via Crystal Palace and their USA partner team after a long career in US football. Where we're likely to use them is up for debate, at the moment. Val Tex came up from Selhurst Park as a left-back who likes to get forward a bit, but scored a hat-trick in a trial and is likely to be played further up, where his height can be of greater use to the attack. Similarly Luke B is described both as a midfielder who finds time on the ball, and a forward.

When Rob Page was absent against Wycombe, Danny Hall came into central defence and did well. He was able to get over and help out Aaron Downes at right-back when The Chairboys doubled-up McGleish and Zebroski on him, too. Kerry's absence would probably have been covered by the reintroduction of Paul Harsley at the start of the week, but the arrival of others gives Lee Richardson options. Lee may pair Harsley and Niven in central midfield, with Luke B starting asanother striker in a 4-4-2, but don't be surprised if Luke B drops back to make the fifth man in a 4-5-1. The other option is to play Jamie Winter in a midfield five, and there are many who think that Jamie deserves to continue his recent decent run in the side. In his Spireites World preview Lee reveals that "We've had a look at two or three options in training today (Thursday) and tomorrow we'll get down to the details of what we need to do for Saturday."

Looking ahead to the Dale game Lee concedes that "Conceding early goals and having men sent off is not going to help our cause, and we're going to have to defend well to get anything out of the game." Expect a game of patience from us, perhaps, mindful of the lateness of our winner there, last season.

Jon Shaw has yet to regain full fitness after a hamstring strain and Lee Thorpe is suspended, so Dale are down to three fit forwards.

When we went to the Cambridge play-off final and lost there was a monumental hang-over at the start of the following season, and Dale seem to be suffering some of the same, with only one win to their credit so far this term, against Barnet, and by the same score that we did them. They've also lost 1-0 at home to Wycombe and, while their result at home to Bury was one point better than ours, they dropped two in comparison to us, at Grimsby. They currently sit in fifteenth place but, since its early days yet, any sort of a win tomorrow would see them leapfrog us. We can climb three places to fifth, if results go our way in the games involving Aldershot, Gillingham and Brentford. And us, of course!

As ever, the match will be covered live and in full on Spireites World

SB