Lewington will sacrifice youngsters

14 April 2012

Ray Lewington is poised to let some of his young Watford players go out on loan to generate some cash for a loan signing of his own.

The Watford manager, who allowed striker Scott Fitzgerald to go to Brentford on a month's deal last week, is keen to strengthen his injury-ravaged squad following two consecutive home defeats.

"I'm not dismissing bringing anyone in," said Lewington. "I'll need to let a couple of the lads go out to generate the cash. I don't want to say who it might be yet because I haven't told them."

Although Watford have banked more than £1.1million from their cup exploits this season, all of the money has gone towards paying off their sizeable debts.

The cash-strapped Hornets have slipped to within seven points of the relegation zone after fielding inexperienced line-ups in the recent defeats to Coventry and Nottingham Forest.

Lewington said: "When everyone is fit, we have a good side. When we have a couple of injuries we are still decent as the kids have come in and done so well. When we are missing a lot of players we can't cope. Against Coventry we were without Sean Dyche, Gavin Mahon, Brynjar Gunnarsson, Paul Devlin, Neal Ardley and Heidar Helguson.

"We are bringing in all these inexperienced players and it doesn't work."

For tomorrow's derby at Queens Park Rangers, leading scorer Helguson is poised to return after missing three games with a knee injury.

Rangers boss Ian Holloway has a fully fit squad to choose from and has set his team the target of the last play-off slot.

He said: "I want 72 points this season. It might be a tall order, but that's what I want. Anybody can beat anybody in this division and we will try to go forward."

West Ham

The Hammers want to take over the midfielder's contract until the end of June after which the situation will be reviewed.

Newton spent nine seasons at Charlton before moving to Molineux for £850,000 in 2001.

Manager Alan Pardew is also looking to sign central defender Andrew Davies on loan from Middlesbrough.

Davis recently rejected a permanent move to Rangers and Pardew has moved quickly following the breakdown of talks with Cardiff over Wales international striker James Collins.

Pardew is hopeful that at least one of the deals will be completed in time for the player to make his debut at Reading tomorrow, but if not he will have to play either Hayden Mullins or Carl Fletcher alongside Malky Mackay.

Tomas Repka misses the game to begin a three-match suspension after his sending off in West Ham's defeat against Preston last weekend.

Pardew received a hostile reception when he went back to his former club last season but said today: "That was then. This match isn't about me, it's about two teams who both want to be in those play-off positions at the end of the season."

Martin Ling

His side, who are six points behind seventh-placed Lincoln, entertain struggling Cambridge tomorrow and Ling knows that a victory is imperative.

"It's a big gap and a hard one to bridge," said manager Ling.

"There's a lot of teams between us and seventh place but I feel that seven wins would see us there and that's achievable. What we need to do, though, is start getting back back-to-back victories."

Mark Peters (toe) and Jabo Ibehre (knee) are injured while Efe Echanomi misses out through suspension.

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