United made it back-to-back wins against Tranmere on Saturday afternoon with an overall commanding performance that puts them in the draw for round two on Monday evening, and it was done with manager Paul Simpson not able to fill the nine available spaces on the bench that this particular competition allows due to the injury situation.
Missing from the team sheet as enforced changes from last weekend were Kris Dennis and Jack Stretton, and that meant a recall for fit again Tobi Sho-Silva, who has worked hard to come through a nasty hamstring injury.
“Kris actually told me that he’d felt his calf tighten in the first minute of last Saturday’s game but it was his adrenaline that got him through,” he explained. “There was a possibility he could have been on the bench but I didn’t think it was worth the risk.
“With hindsight maybe I should have put him on there but we got through the tie and I got away with it. I do expect him to be available for Tuesday.
“He’s had a couple of good training sessions and we’ll keep our fingers crossed and see how he is. All being well he’ll be fine and we’ll see him back out there.
“Jack, I have to say possibly not for Tuesday, but he’s definitely made a massive improvement. I think it’s more likely that he’ll be available for us next Saturday. We’ll wait and see.
“He turned his ankle in training on Wednesday. He’s a lot better today when I saw him before the game, so we’ll see how he goes over the next few days and assess it from there.
“I’m certainly going to have a massive list of strikers available if I can get them all fit. It makes for an exciting time ahead - hopefully.”
“We’ll be without Jon Mellish at Harrogate, he’ll serve his suspension, but we’ve got Ryan Edmondson back after his three-game ban,” he continued. “I told him that over this period while he was suspended that I was going to run him daft to make sure he’s fully fit.
“We’ve done that, he was in again today to do some heavy work with Dev, and I would expect he’s looking forward to being available for selection.
“We had Sonny Hilton on the bench and come the midweek game, he’ll be another few days fitter. We also had a problem with Corey Whelan this week, but he’s declared himself fit as well.
“Ben Barclay is going to be joining in training soon, and Dev will be in full training, but it’s probably too early on Tuesday for him.
“We’re starting to get players back and that’s what we need. No disrespect to Taylor and Jordan, but they’re not centre forwards and they’ve had to go and do jobs for us in that role because of the numbers being low in that area.”
“As I keep saying all we do is get on with it,” he continued. “Whatever we’ve got available, we’ll see. We’ve got options, we’ve got players who can come in and who want to come in, and it’s up to them to go and do the job.
“I can’t ask any more of all of them so far, they’ve been absolutely brilliant. The lads who’ve come into the side, look at Jack Ellis getting an opportunity because of Fin being ill, look at Taylor Charters coming in because of a suspension.
“Tobi came in because of everything that’s going on. They’ve all rolled their sleeves up and showed me, showed us, that they’re all pulling in the same direction and that they all want the same things.
“With Tuesday in mind we’ll look at how they all are on Monday and we’ll take it from there.”
