Wanderers stars Gerry Taggart and Keith Branagan begin their comeback from injury tonight.

The goalkeeper and defender play for the reserves at Newcastle as they embark on the road to recovery.

But their return has almost certainly come too late to play their way into manager Colin Todd's plans for Wanderers relegation run-in.

The boss, who will watch the pair at St James' Park, has ruled them out of Saturday's showdown with Southampton and is unlikely to draft either into his squad for the final Premiership game of the season at Arsenal eight days later.

Branagan has been out for several weeks with a knee injury while an ankle problem has kept Taggart sidelined even longer.

Meanwhile, Wanderers' began preparing for Saturday's crunch clash without star trio Sasa Curcic, John McGinlay and Gudni Bergsson who are away on international duty.

Todd said: "It doesn't help when you don't have players with you when you are trying to prepare for a game and we won't have them back until Thursday." Victory for the reserves tonight would be a major boost to their hopes of retaining their First Division status for next season, particularly as plans to streamline the top flight for next season could see five clubs relegated.

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