THE illness which swept the Wanderers camp before their weekend defeat at Stockport County has cleared but Ian Evatt says he won’t take risks in the Bristol Street Motors Trophy.
With Josh Sheehan, Szabolcs Schön, Dion Charles and Luke Southwood away on international duty and the likes of Carlos Mendes Gomes, George Thomason, Eoin Toal, Kyle Dempsey and Chris Forino out injured, a handful of B Team players will help fill the squad to face Fleetwood in the final group game.
Chances could be offered to Luke Hutchinson, Conor Lewis, Noah Halford, Sam Inwood and Sonny Sharples-Ahmed but Evatt says he won’t take chances with Gethin Jones and Jordi Osei-Tutu, who will continue to have their minutes managed on their return from injury.
“It’s a game that isn’t ideal in terms of timing, we had a lot of illness in the camp last week, we still have a lot of injuries and there are a few lads who are away on international duty,” he said.
“Even still, the likelihood the team is going to be heavily changed and rotated, we can’t keep going to the well with the same ones.
“But any team I put out there will be competitive, and we know Fleetwood will come here looking for the win that would see them through. We have to be up for it.”
Evatt had only mentioned in passing that a virus had spread around his squad in the build up to the Stockport game but with that now cleared he is keen to start making amends for the weekend’s disappointment.
“We tried to keep it in-house the level of illness last week, it was a crazy time and it ended in a crazy manner too,” he said. “Thankfully we have had no further cases and the lads who were poorly have now recovered. I don’t think we have picked up anything fresh, injury-wise but some players who have just come back obviously need to be monitored.
“Predominantly, the group which has remained are okay. The lads on international duty left after the game on Saturday and obviously that was extremely hurtful and disappointing for us all.
“We face these challenges in football and we have to own what happened, plus be resilient enough to know what is coming our way and try our best to put it right.
“We must underline that all is not lost. We spoke at the start of the season that this league is going to be extremely tight ad nothing has really changed in my view. There will be highs and lows and up and downs.
“We don’t want downs like we experienced on Saturday but we have to be resilient and make sure we come back better.”
