United boss Paul Simpson confirmed at his post-match press conference tonight that it’s bad news for striker Tobi Sho-Silva, who missed out today due to a nasty hamstring injury picked up at the end of last Monday’s training session.
“Tobi tore his hamstring on Monday in training, literally with the last thing he did in the game we were playing,” he said. “He now has about a 14-centimetre tear so he’s probably out for eight weeks.
“It needs to be treated and we’ll need to look after that with him.”
“Brennan Dickenson was back in training this week and on Thursday he took a shot at goal, and when he was closed down somebody landed on him,” he continued. “That opened his knee, so he’s had a scan today and we’re waiting for the results.
“There could be some damage there that could put him out for a while, but I’m still waiting for the results, so we’ll have to wait and see.”
“Jamie Devitt was all signed and agreed on Thursday afternoon, which was really good, but he reported ill overnight that night and he wasn’t fit enough to come in,” he confirmed. “He had some sort of virus, I don’t know if it’s Covid, we’re not sure at the moment.
“He’s quite ill and I was hoping he may be a bit better today, but that wasn’t the case.”
On the impact it’s had on the squad, he said: “They’re blows to us.
“It’s the usual thing though, it can’t affect us now, we have to just get on with it. It meant we had a very young bench, avbit of a depleted group.
“That’s not a problem. We just have to get on with it and hope we can add a few additions to it, which we continue to try to do. Maybe by next weekend we’ll have a little more strength in depth.
“Today, where we’re in a position where you have seven subs and are allowed to use five, I’m a little bit nervous about whether we’ve actually got five.
“But I don’t think we’re the only club in the land who’ve got that issue. Crawley only put six on the bench for some reason, I don’t know why because there were five other players sat in the stand.
“I’ve spoken to other managers, head coaches over the last few weeks, and they’re not able to put a full seven on the bench.
“We’ll just keep working, keep looking after ourselves and make sure we get it right by the end of the transfer window.”
And he admitted that things could have been even trickier, had Omari Patrick’s partner gone into labour, with her due to give birth imminently.
“I was desperately hoping, and I’m really sorry to Omari for saying this, but my fingers were crossed that she didn’t start having the baby today,” he joked.
“She’s definitely getting closer to starting to labour, but fair play to Marzi, he said that he wanted to be here and he’d organised for his family to be there with his partner.
“I’m hoping he’ll have a really good weekend and get his baby born. We’ll see what happens there.
“We were down to bare bones and we have to strengthen it. We’re trying to bring players in, but it’s not easy. We’ll just keep working at it.
“My priorities haven’t shifted, because there are areas I want to strengthen anyway. I want competition in every position for us.
“We need to add some additions to it and we’ll continue to keep trying to do that.”
Still to be assessed is Callum Guy, who left the pitch late in the game this afternoon.
“I’ll be honest, I didn’t ask what it was at the time,” he said. “I just got told by Ross the physio that he had to come off.
“It’s more a kick, I think, and I saw him with ice on his calf so I’m hoping he shakes that off. Callum is a bit of a warrior, he wants to be out there, and I’m quite sure by next week he’ll be fine.”
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