PROBLEMS continue to dog Scarborough manager Neil Thomposon despite his players finally getting paid yesterday.

Ahead of tomorrow's long haul to Yeovil the players were given their pay checks yesterday - 13 days late - but there is no money available to strengthen a team which is perilously close to the bottom of the Nationwide Conference.

Squad strengthening is urgently needed as Thompson has a long list of absentees for the game at Huish Park.

Said the Boro manager: "The situation off the pitch at the club is not acceptable and we need to get it sorted out very quickly, as I cannot in all honesty try and get new players in."

Such is the threadbare nature of his squad that Thompson is considering playing himself at left-back against Yeovil even though he has not figured all season and is still beset by an ankle injury.

It is likely that YTS players will be on the bench and with strikers in short supply, Aaron Wilford, on loan from Middlesbrough, who has so far played in midfield and at centre-back may now have to be pushed up front as an emergency striker.

Explained the Boro boss: "Aaron did okay when he went forward late on at Stevenage and it's something we might have to consider, but we shall probably have to have a late roll-call."

Thompson is missing five regulars but at least it will give David Pounder a chance to stake a claim for a place in the side in midfield.

It is hoped that Jamie Burt, who pulled out of the game at Stevenage with sinusitis, will be fit enough to make the substitutes' bench alongside former York City duo James Turley and John Keegan.

Boro (probable): Woods, Atkinson, Ingram, Faure, Rennison, Fitzsimmons, Stoker, Blunt, Pounder, Brodie, Wilford. Subs from Newton, Thompson, Keegan, Henderson, Burt, Turley, Jewell.

Ironically as Boro founder near the foot of the Conference Thompson's predecessor Colin Addison has been handed a Football League lifeline.

Addison, the one-time York City player who quit Boro's opponents Yeovil at the end of last season, today started life as the new manager of Swansea City.

The Swans appointed Addison, a former manager of Derby County, Hereford and Athletico Madrid, as their new boss in succession to John Hollins, who departed Vetch Field earlier in the week.

Addison's assistant will be former Arsenal and Wales midfielder Peter Nicholas, who two months ago led Barry Town's European Champions League bid.

Updated: 12:24 Friday, September 14, 2001