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Page last updated at 11:15 GMT, Wednesday, 22 July 2009 12:15 UK

Mackail-Smith close to return

Craig Mackail-Smith
Mackail-Smith scored 26 goals in all competitions last season

Peterborough United hope to have striker Craig Mackail-Smith available for their final pre-season friendly.

Mackail-Smith has been struggling with an injury relating to his body alignment problems and has barely trained since returning for pre-season.

"He'll start training again later this week," Peterborough boss Darren Ferguson told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.

"We hope to get him fit for the Oxford friendly and if he comes through that he will be fit for Derby."

Ferguson experimented with a number of different forward combinations in Tuesday's 4-0 defeat to Tottenham.

Posh started the game with Aaron Mclean and Ben Wright leading the line, but introduced George Boyd and Shaun Batt as the match wore on.

"We've got prepare as though Craig isn't going to be fit, we're going to try Shaun Batt up front again and Ben Wright has done very well," he said.

In further team news, Dean Keates missed the Spurs match with a slight knock, whilst Gabby Zakuani is still feeling the effects of flu.

"Gabby will play 90 minutes against Fulham on Saturday so pretty much everyone is back in the building and well," Ferguson said.



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see also
Mclean wary of Wright competition
21 Jul 09 |  Peterborough
Wright delighted with hat-trick
15 Jul 09 |  Peterborough
Mackail-Smith wants competition
02 Jul 09 |  Peterborough


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