ALBION manager Micky Adams has been given the green light by the Board to strengthen his suspension-hit squad after releasing Aidan Newhouse.

Darren Freeman, Gary Hart, Danny Cullip and Warren Aspinall are all facing bans which will stretch Adams' resources.

"I think we have enough competition to cover us in the short term," he said. "But we might look later to strengthen with a loan or two. I have been given the go ahead by the Board to do that.

"When you take Aidan Newhouse out then realistically it leaves me with 18 or 19 first team players. We've got four suspensions coming up, so I have got to take it seriously."

Striker Newhouse, 27, has been on a month-to-month contract since joining Albion from Swansea in the summer.

He scored two goals as a sub in the opening game against Mansfield, but has been on the bench most of the time and recently slipped behind teenager Scott Ramsay in the pecking order.

"Aidan will be leaving the club in the next week and we wish him well," said Adams. "It has not quite worked out for him. With the emergence of young Ramsay I felt Aidan was wasted in the Reserves."

Albion's banned quartet are all available for tomorrow's sell-out against seventh-placed Northampton.

Hart and Aspinall serve one-match suspensions in Tuesday's FA Cup replay against Plymouth. Cullip misses the next away fixture at Mansfield a week tomorrow, when Freeman starts his four-game ban.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.