United boss Paul Simpson confirmed that he’ll be making some late decisions in terms of who travels and who doesn’t this weekend as he waits to see how a couple of niggly situations from the Harrogate game pan out.
“We’ve got a couple of issues from last weekend, which we’re waiting to make late decisions on,” he said. “Owen Moxon is one, following the dead leg he picked up, and there are others which I’m not going to talk about.
“Hopefully everybody will be fit and available, but if they’re not it opens the door for others and it’s an opportunity for them to step up. Whoever gets the shout will have to make sure they come and do the job that doesn’t let anybody down.
“Mox still hasn’t trained yet this week so we’re going to have to see how he settles down over the next couple of days.
“I’m hoping it doesn’t keep him out this weekend, but if he’s not right for Saturday there’ll be a good chance he’ll be right for Tuesday. With dead legs sometimes they clear up quickly or it lingers around for a while, so we just have to see how he goes.
“There’s every chance he’s going to travel with us even if he’s not fit to train on Friday. It’s a decision we’ll make late.
“If he’s got absolutely no chance for Saturday, we probably won’t waste his time sitting on a coach – we’ll get him treatment over the weekend and manage that so we give him the best chance for Tuesday.
“But I would like to think the way it’s settled down over the first part of the week that it should be ok.”
“I don’t know how you can scale dead legs to be honest – we haven’t had it scanned,” he confirmed. “I think when you have a ligament injury or a hamstring strain or whatever, you can grade them with your one, two, three, A, B, Cs and that sort of stuff.
“With a dead leg it’s that particular individual’s tolerance of pain. Sometimes they flush out quickly, other times they take a little bit longer. I can’t really gauge it.
“He hasn’t trained this week yet, so it’s giving him a bit of pain. We’ve just got to hope it can settle down. We’ve got through these first 72-90-odd hours, we’ve just got to hope it clears over the next couple of days.
“If he does feel ok with it he’ll certainly be involved in the game. Even though he’s got a dead leg and can’t be out on the grass, we always make sure they’re going some sort of cardiovascular work in the gym.
“He’s still keeping his lungs going, doing some work. He’s just not putting any stress onto his legs. Like I say, if his dead leg has cleared up he will be involved in the game, that’s what we’re hoping at the moment.”
And the gaffer also confirmed that there’s now a way forward for striker Tobi Sho-Silva, who rolled his ankle in training just over a week ago.
“He’s got his appointment with the surgeon on Thursday where we’ll find out exactly what they’re going to do,” he explained. “It’s been really difficult getting an appointment for him but we’ve got that sorted and we should get a definitive answer in terms of what the next steps are.
“We do think it will be surgery but that was only going off what we were told after the scan, so we’ll see what they say on Thursday.
“Jack Ellis has joined in with training in the last couple of days, so he’s getting there. He’s trained fully with us this morning [Wednesday] but I haven’t been told how he is, or if there’s been any reaction to that.
“We’ll just keep building him up and see how he goes. This weekend will be too early for him, but fingers crossed he won’t be too far away. Maybe next weekend he might be able to come into our thinking.
“Taylor Charters and Ryan Edmondson are still doing all their work, but it’s mostly gym-based at the moment. Ryan’s been out on the grass, but isn’t allowed any contact at all, so he’s not involved in the football.”
And on defender Joel Senior, he said: “He’s good. He’s trained well this week, there’s no problems with Joel. He’s part of our thinking.
“He will be in the group to travel to Wimbledon. Ben Barclay has done very, very well. It was one of them where I felt the right time had come for Joel to step out of it to give him a breather. He’s certainly in my thoughts for this weekend.”
