A very familiar face for Town and Lester, and the work going on in the wings

Town fans will of course be well acquainted with goalkeeper Barry Roche who made 140 appearances for Chesterfield.

But there’s a man in the Shrimpers squad who has played a grand total of 16 games against Town over the many years he’s been operating as a footballer.

Should he be selected to face Jack Lester’s men, Kevin Ellison will step out onto the pitch for the 680th time as a senior professional.

He’s turning 39 this month, but still churning out performances and goals in the Football League.

This season has brought 31 games and eight goals for Morecambe, adding to all those he scored for the likes of Rotherham United, Chester and Altrincham.

His record against the Spireites is good, having won seven and drawn five of those 16 clashes, although he’s only ever hit the Town net twice.

Lester knows him well having come up against him ‘plenty’ of times.

“Good lad, nice lad,” said the manager.

“He’s niggly but I like him, I like what he’s about.

“To play that long is great credit to him, fair play to him.

“I’ve got a lot of time for him.”

In terms of his own wingers, now that Lester finally has some to work with at the Proact, he’s been ensuring they work closely with the strikers in training.

Lester has been focusing on getting bodies in the box and what to expect when any given player picks up the ball out wide.

“I think it’s important you are clear on the amount of people you need to get in the box, encourage people to make those runs,” he said.

“Really work on the delivery, areas to hit and joined up thinking where you can get an understanding as a striker of whoever is crossing it and where it’s likely to go.

“We’ve done a lot of that kind of stuff over the past 10 days.

“With new wingers in the building strikers have got to get used to where a cross comes, read the body language of whoever is about to cross it, what they tend to do from certain areas.

“Hopefully that will bring us more goalscorers.”