Griffiths expected to miss Minstermen clash

The left back missed Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Oxford due to illness, although Still was more than happy with how Jake Howells deputised.

He said: “He’s not been well, but was little bit better today, so we’ll see tomorrow.

“He (Howells) can play that role though. I look at Jake and he can play there, play the wide role and the inside one.

“He’s in a decent run of form at the moment and I wouldn’t have taken him out of that position (left wing), as he’s done okay and with Ryan (Hall) needing a little bit more fitness.

“But Scott Griffiths not being well, it made it being a bit more difficult.”

The likes of Luke Guttridge, Pelly Ruddock Mpanzu and Alex Lawless are all available for selection, but have found their returns hampered by the poor conditions recently.

Still continued: “The weather was so bad last week it was almost impossible to train properly, so we coudn’t get enough into Alex.

“Because of the injuries he’s had, he couldn’t really do much as the pitches were frozen. We did have astrotuf, but that’s a bit difficult with his foot, so we decided not to go with that and had there not been the adverse weather, it might have been different for Alex.

“Pelly is back in training, he’s trained, but needs a little bit more now, while Gutts was able to train a little bit on the astroturf with us, so we were able to include him (at Oxford).”

There was also good news regarding striker Paul Benson, as Still added “I’ll be surprised if Paul Benson doesn’t start training with us by the end of this week, beginning of next week.

“So we’re right on it with that. I don’t want to rush them back and send them backwards. It would be be much better for me to look at all of our good attacking players and have a choice to make.”