United’s long weekend trip to Exeter brought with it more injury worries with defender Jack Armer limping from the field in the first half with a nasty cut on his leg, and with striker Lewi Alessandra having missed out on the journey completely as he nursed a troublesome foot injury.
Speaking after the game, manager Keith Millen explained: “The first thing we need to do is recover, and see who we have fit come Monday morning.
“I’ve told the lads I don’t want to see any sad faces. They can be sad on the way home, but we have Harrogate on Tuesday and we need to move on.
“So, draw a line under it now, learn our lessons, you have to learn lessons because it can’t keep happening, that’s got to be something we talk about and be positive going into the game Tuesday.
“It’s the performances - if we’d lost and our heads had dropped and we had no running, I’d be more concerned. The fact we kept going gives you a lot more positive thoughts.”
And with more of a focus on the specific injury worries, he said: “Jack Armer has got a terrible gash on his leg. The referee said it was a fair challenge, so I don’t know, there were some decisions that didn’t go our way at all.
“When you see where the stud marks are, it’s not on his foot, they’re above the ankle. That’s a high challenge. Again, I haven’t seen the incident back yet, but from where the stud marks are I can’t understand how you can say that’s a fair tackle.
“Lewi Alessandra has a problem with his foot, on the bone, and I’m not sure what the medical term for it is. He’s going to be out for quite a long time.
“And there’s Joe Riley, unfortunately he’s not really close at all. He’s not training yet. He’s improving, the medical report was quite positive, but it still hasn’t settled down.
“Gime Toure is another we’re waiting to hear about, to see when he will be back. Like I say, we’ve got a few injuries, which isn’t ideal, because I want competition for places. We need to get as many people fit as possible.
“Of course we’re still looking forward to every game, and we have to deal with these things and move on. My only concern is how many fit players we have.
“We have some bad knocks in there with a few lads so let’s see who we have available come Monday.”
