Tuesday afternoon’s friendly against David Unsworth’s Everton under-23 side saw a welcome return to action for defender George Tanner, who got a very useful 77 minutes under his belt.
“George hasn’t missed much training time at all really,” assistant boss Gav Skelton explained. “It’s been nothing major, just one of those situations where he’s taken a couple of things to get over, so it’s in that week or 10-day period that he’s missed out.
“I thought he looked good and strong right from the off. His fitness levels were good. I think he surprised himself with how fit he was because we all know he hasn’t had loads of minutes.
“He’s done the off-season plan, done the start of pre-season, so he’ll probably be fresher than some. There’s more to come but we’re really pleased with that and he’ll take confidence from the game.
“As it went on he was overlapping, getting in the final third, which is George Tanner at his best.”
And on the absences of Danny Devine, Morgan Feeney, Keelan Leslie and Rod McDonald, he said: “Keelan will train now [Tuesday afternoon] and should be back and involved either later this week or next week.
“Morgan is doing his rehab, he might train Thursday, might be available Friday, or that might be too soon, maybe not.
“Rod we’re hoping will be back on Friday. And Danny Devine has a grade one on his hamstring, so he might be a couple of weeks, so it’s nothing major.
“Three of them might be involved this week but will train Monday – Danny will be a couple of weeks. All being well come the start of next week we’re not looking in too bad shape.”
