Full-back likely to be involved against Rochdale

GRAHAM Westley says right-back Ronny Henry has a good chance of making the squad for Saturday’s clash with Rochdale.

Henry has been on the sidelines since taking a knock in the match against Chesterfield United on August 13, but is now ready to make a return to first team action.

“We’ve been quite full on the training ground this week,” said Westley. “There’s a good chance Ronnie might be available and it’s always nice to have a player of his experience and quality available in the ranks so we’re in quite a good shape from a fitness point of view.”

Westley is keen to see a marked improvement after last week’s 1-0 defeat to league-leaders MK Dons, after which he said his players gave the opposition too much respect. However he is wary of the threat posed by a Rochdale side that knocked Premier League new-boys QPR out of the Carling Cup Second Round with a 2-0 win at Loftus Road.

He added: “Rochdale were promoted from League 2 into League 1 like ourselves the year before us and they settled in very well last year.

“They lost their manger and changed some of their personnel and haven’t started the season in the best possible way. But John (Dreyer) went to see them against QPR the other week where they got a fantastic result away from home, so any club that can go to a Premier League outfit and get a result away from home you have to treat with due regard and, as ever, we will do.”

Boro have had an up and down start to the new season with one win, three draws and a defeat, but Westley says he is not taking too much notice of the table at this stage as it doesn’t always give a clear indication of how the rest of the season will pan out.

He said: “We won the Conference off the back of one win, three draws and a defeat in our first five games so we know our early results and form is no real indicator of where you’re going to go. But what we’ve got to do is build on the unbeaten stuff we started with and get rid of habits that have cost us goals and make sure we continue to improve.”