Darlington boss Steve Staunton has confirmed Noel Whelan is finally ready to make his home bow this weekend.
Quakers striker in line for Shots clash
Darlington boss Steve Staunton has confirmed Noel Whelan is finally ready to make his home bow this weekend.
The veteran striker has yet to turn out at the Northern Echo arena after being plagued by injuries since joining the League Two strugglers three months ago.
Whelan, who arrived from Harrogate Town, pulled up with a hamstring strain suffered on his debut against Dagenham in October.
The 35-year-old has since picked up a back complaint but he would have made the Quakers' squad for the game at Bury last weekend, had it not fell victim to the Big Freeze.
Bottom-placed Darlington welcome play-off chasing Aldershot to the North East this Saturday and Staunton expects the former Coventry forward to play a part.
"Noel is fine now," Staunton told
The Northern Echo. "He's been able to train. His problem has been his back but hopefully we've overcome that problem and he's looking sharp in training.
"He wouldn't be fit enough to play a full game, I wouldn't like to throw him in at the deep end, but he would definitely have been involved on Saturday."
Midfield
Staunton has been given mixed news on his midfield with teenage midfielder Dan Groves also set to be available to face the Shots, after recovering from a hairline fracture of his foot.
But Chris Lumsdon remains on the road to recovery, with the 30-year-old having missed most of the season with a back injury.
"His big problem has been the weather," Staunton added of Lumsdon.
"He's not been able to train with the team, he's been in the gym which is okay but from a football point of view it doesn't help him too much. He's a long time off returning yet."
Another player to have rarely featured this season is defender Rikki Baines, who recently returned to the club from a loan spell at Blyth Spartans.
He could yet leave again if Staunton is able to add any defenders to his squad, but he would prefer new arrivals to be permanent transfers instead of loans.
He said: "We know where we want to strengthen and hopefully we will be in a position where we're using mainly our own players with one or two loans rather than the other way around."
