Fit-again Clark back for Hartlepool at Cobblers

Ben Clark’s long-awaited return to the Hartlepool defence looks on for Saturday’s League One visit to Northampton. It may be a little earlier than would be ideal after his recent hamstring injury, but Godwin Antwi is suspended after five bookings, and Clark is the obvious replacement after being an unused sub at Carlisle on New Year's Day.

He has recovered from the injury, but was not used at Carlisle on January 1. It was also decided not ro risk him in the midweek reserve team win over Grimsby.
Striker Joel Porter (right) did make a comeback in that game after recovering from a knee injury, marking his return with a well-taken goal in a 3-2 win.
As manager Danny Wilson’s transfer window search for new players continues, there will be no new faces in the team at Northampton, where Pools are in dire need of a good result after some bad ones on the road in recent weeks.
Clark will replace Antwi, hoping to make it a permanent swap after Antwi came into the side in his place because of the injury.
But it’s doubtful if Porter’s midweek goal will be enough to earn him anything more than a place on the bench. Like Clark, he was an unused sub at Carlisle.
James Brown was on the bench at Carlisle after recovering from a virus, and Willie Boland is now back after recovering from the same bug. Both are likely to be in the starting line-up at Northampton, in place of David Foley and Antony Sweeney.
Richard Barker and Ian Moore can expect to continue in attack, with Clark for Antwi the only change in defence.
Although they were without a game last weekend, Pools still have a couple of injury problems – Jamie McCunnie and Andy Monkhouse both ruled out with knee injuries.
Hoping to end a run of six away defeats on the trot, Danny Wilson told the Hartlepool Mail: "A clean sheet is always the priority. With the players we have we will always create chances and score goals, but we want to make sure that we keep things tight at the back.
"The results away from home have not been good of late – which is surprising given the way we played away from home last season and at the start of this – and that has been down to a number of reasons.
"We have made bad decisions at certain times and conceded sloppy goals.
I don't think that we have played abysmally in all of these games so it is not as if we need to radically change the way we are playing."

Meanwhile, Ali Gibb has joined Notts County on a one-month loan, and his first game on Saturday will be against Bradford City, who signed Pools' Lee Bullock on loan last week. Another ex-Poolie, Gavin Strachan, has also joined County in a permanent deal from Peterborough.