Manager Paul Simpson confirmed after the game on Saturday that keeper Jokull Andresson had reported in ill, hence his absence from the trip down south.
“He didn’t come in on Friday morning because he said he’d been throwing up all night,” he explained. “We don’t know whether it’s food poisoning or some sort of bug, I’ve got no idea, but when you’ve got a seven or eight hour journey in a confined space the last thing we needed was anybody else picking it up.
“We made the decision to leave Jokull at home and bring Gabe Breeze with us. Thankfully he wasn’t called upon, but he’s a fully able replacement.
“I would expect Jokull to be ok for Tuesday. He was sick during the night through Thursday and early Friday morning. He wasn’t able to come in.
“We’ll see, I would fully expect him to be able to train on Monday and come back into it, but I’m not expecting any other outfield players to be able to come and help us.”
On changes made during the game, he commented: “Joe Garner was excellent. I wanted to keep him on but he did what Joe does and got himself booked after a bit of a silly challenge, which there wasn’t any need to do.
“I had to take him off because I couldn’t run the risk of losing him. Alfie McCalmont was feeling his thigh and I hope we got him off in time, because we are really thin on numbers.
“Callum got cramp but he also had a yellow card. You have to be careful in games like this where you’ve got a full house baying for red cards.
“We couldn’t take any chances and he was getting cramp. When that happens you only need to tug somebody back because your legs are going, and I wasn’t prepared to take that chance.
“We’ve got 17 outfield players fit and we can’t afford any other injuries going into the game on Tuesday. We have to take whatever disappointment, anger, or whatever it is you’re feeling into Tuesday night.
“That’s two 1-0 defeats. Different types of performances but they’ve both ended up with the same result. We have to keep taking the good things and making Sure we build on them. I do think there were a lot of good things we’ve got to make sure we build on.”
One of those good things was a very eye-catching appearance from Dan Butterworth, who had impressed in the midweek Central League Cup outing at Penrith.
“When they get an opportunity in those bounce games they have to do a job,” the gaffer said. “He hasn’t been involved because unfortunately he hasn’t done the job we wanted him to, but he showed a bit of life.
“We had a couple of niggles going into the game and that’s the reason why I chose to go with Butts and not Corey Whelan.
“I know Corey will be disappointed but he’s important to us and the decisions are made based on changes I can see might possibly need to be made.
“They’re all going to be needed because as I keep saying, we’ve only got 17 outfield players fit at the moment.”
