Andy King has landed himself with some severe selection headaches ahead of tomorrow's home game against Stoke.

The addition of Richard Dryden to the squad means that manager King will have to leave out one of his regular back three, or ignore the Southampton man's Premiership experience.

He is also faced with a tricky choice between favoured goalkeeper Bart Griemink and stand-in Steve Mildenhall, who performed so capably against Ilkeston last week.

He has five strikers pressing their claims for a starting berth, and none is an automatic selection.

Club captain Mark Robinson took part in one of the training matches yesterday, and is challenging for a recall ahead of Juan Cobian, who deputised faultlessly against the part-timers.

King was not giving any indication as to who might start.

"No clues," he said. "It's a pleasant headache for me. Bart Griemink has been the first-choice keeper without the possibilities of a challenge, but now Steve Mildenhall's performance has given me a headache.

"There's now competition throughout. At the back, we've got Richard Dryden in to put competition in the centre back positions. They've got to fight for their places.

"We've always had competition up front, but the midfield takes care of itself, although Matt Hewlett's coming back soon.

"There were triallists yesterday, which were okay, better than the triallists we've had in recent weeks.

"Things are panning out, but we'll see. There's still a long way to go."

King was taking very little notice of Stoke's FA Cup defeat at non-League Nuneaton Borough.

"It can work two ways," he said. "Every animal is at its most ferocious when something's just happened to it.

"If we go and get them early, they might be drained of confidence from Tuesday night, but I take nothing from the result. I just plan to make sure we're right."

King's charges looked in confident mood in training and should be buoyant following their convincing win last weekend.

Again, however, King is not reading too much into the result.

He said: "I take nothing away from our second-half performance, but I wouldn't shout from the tree-tops about beating a non-league side.

"That doesn't prove anything on form levels to me. If we beat Stoke 4-1 tomorrow, that might give me a plus.

"And they are capable of doing it. The consistency at the moment is not good enough. They need to get results week in week out."