Hartlepool United v Gillingham

GILLINGHAM boss Neale Cooper returns to his old club Hartlepool for the first time tonight, six months after the club sacked him.

The circumstances surrounding Cooper’s departure remain unknown and the Gills manager admits it will be strange to return to The Victoria Ground.

Cooper said: "We’ll go into it more confident than if we hadn’t have won (against Blackpool). We’ve got to take that feeling of proudness and delight in the changing room after the match to Hartlepool.

"It will be strange for me but it will be nice to go back there and, if not win the game, then come back with a vital point."

Andy Hessenthaler and keeper Tony Bullock both picked up knocks in the win over Blackpool and will face late fitness tests, while Cooper admits the club's eagerness to get Darren Byfield back fit may have done more harm than good.

He said: "He tried to come in on Thursday and joined in the warm-up and then aggravated his injury and that’s a big blow because we need him back.

"Credit to him, he said he’d like to try it because he knew the situation I was in personally and the team, he knew we needed all hands on deck."

On the plus side, Cooper will have Leon Johnson back from suspension following his three-match ban for a red card against Crawley, while Danny Spiller will hope to have recovered from his ankle injury.