Our midweek preview of the Chesterfield-Rochdale match is very pertinent, as it also touches upon Torquay United ....

These are two of the League 2 highflyers and both will have promotion as a priority, but the hosts have the squad to also give this competition a real go and will not have expended too much energy in seeing off a lowly non league side at home on Saturday. Dale meanwhile made the circa 600 mile and ten hour round trip to Torquay and back and their match was in the balance until they scored twice after the 86th minute to record a fully deserved 2-0 win . With a tough trip to Morecambe ( just one point behind them in the league) on Saturday and with involvement in the FA Cup to look forward and a squad which are still evolving, I suspect they will not be quite as up for this as the Spirites. Visiting boss Keith Hill, had already spoken about rotation for Torquay, with Morecambe in mind and that will go double for this evening. His counterpart Paul Cook is keen to win again his team's victory over Daventry was their first in six ( four draws, one defeat) and they want to keep the momentum up, he is treating this seriously and has had Dale watched twice recently, despite already meeting the visitors this season ( a 2-2 draw at Spotland).

The Spirites won that 3-0 and will make the long trip down to the West Country in good heart, with five goals and two clean sheets in the last seven days, without expending too much energy.They have, what is widely regarded as the strongest squad in League 2 and have travelled with no new injuries , in good shape and confident mood. United held out for 80 minutes plus last week, but were run ragged at times by a Rochdale team who had rested several key players and whilst it is dangerous to compare form like that, it does give us a very good form line for Chesterfield today.

Torquay are without centre-back Anthony O'Connor (5 apps-0 goals -0 assists) who is on international duty with the Republic of Ireland Under-21's, he signed on loan from Blackburn Rovers last month and they have looked more solid with him in the line up. Midfielder Ben Harding (10-0-0) and left winger Billy Bodin (11-0-2) are both out, right back Dale Tongue (14-0-0) is a major doubt and would be a big loss, they were all over the place defensively against Oxford United here in the only game he missed and already weaker on the other flank, his absence would leave them very vunerable to the visitors wide men. Midfielder Lee Mansell (15-0-1) has not trained all week, but seems likely to play.

The visitors look good here and even better if Tongue misses out. 1.5 units Chesterfield -0.5 ball 2.10 general quote.

Preview written 09.30 Saturday.

Good Luck.