​Carruthers faces luxury of choice for key double-header

The Gladiators host 16th-placed Ashton United at the Proctor Cars Stadium on Saturday afternoon before they face league leaders and title favourites South Shields on Tuesday evening (7.45 pm).

Recent absentees Robbie McNicholas and Dan Bradley should be fit for selection while Brad Abbott is likely to be the only definite exclusion.

“I’m hoping to have a nice selection headache later this week, probably for the first time since I came to the club,” said Carruthers.

“Injuries and suspensions have led to me naming makeshift sides in a lot of the games but now I’m hoping everyone gets through training on Wednesday so we can have a squad of 18 or 19 players where I can have the great headache of mulling over the squad and having to leave people out of the 16-man matchday squad.

“Having almost everyone fit is a great problem for a manager to have although it’s no easy task to come up with the final 11.”

Possibly one of the most difficult of choices for Carruthers at present is who goes in goal. Jim Pollard was banned following a red card in the New Year defeat at Gainsborough Trinity and Carruthers brought in the vastly-experienced Saul Deeney to fill the void. Deeney kept four clean sheets in six matches before Pollard was recalled for the draw at South Shields and the victory at Stalybridge after Deeney collected an ankle injury.

Then last weekend, Deeney got the nod again to face Hyde.

“It’s really difficult choosing between the two of them,” admitted Carruthers.

“I went with Saul last Saturday, he’d kept four clean sheets in six matches and has the experience, but we’re fortunate to have two quality goalkeepers and it’s something for me to mull over before each game.”

Carruthers could not hide his disappointment at only drawing 1-1 with a Hyde side reduced to ten men (see pages 90 and 91).

He said: “It’s definitely two points dropped, we’d been the better side in the first half having had most of the play and I felt we deserved to be in front at half-time.

"The penalty put us ahead and we deserved it. The sending off ended up being to our detriment, we took the foot off the gas and I was really disappointed.

"Harry Wakefield and Jorome Slew had good chances and it showed that in football if you don’t take the chances and be clinical, there’s always the risk of conceding and dropping points. Credit where it’s due to Hyde, they played better with ten men.”

After Tuesday night’s scorelines, Matlock are five points outside the final play off spot in seventh.

Carruthers is well aware the Ashton and South Shields games will be tough and is taking one game at a time.

He said: “With the players they have, Ashton look like a National League North outfit so we’re expecting a very hard game. We’ve got to concentrate on getting the win against Ashton before we think about South Shields but I consider Ashton to be a must-win game.

"We’ve got to look at getting at least four out of the next six points although we’ll be going all out to win them both.”