It really has become a ‘thing’ that we start our Thursday afternoon press conferences with an injury update and, having appeared to take a few steps forward at this time last week, there was more bad news this time round as it was confirmed that Omari Patrick is set to face a prolonged spell on the sidelines.
“We’ve got some new ones, it’s fair to say,” manager Paul Simpson said. “We had another disappointing week after last weekend with it, and I’ve got to be honest with you, we spent the first few days trying to work out what the issue is and where it’s coming from.
“I have a thing about reasons and excuses, and I don’t know whether they’re reasons or excuses once you do start to dig into it.”
“We picked up a couple from Hartlepool, and Omari’s is a bad one,” he continued. “He’s out for possibly eight to ten weeks with a hamstring tendon problem.
“I think I’m right in saying it’s a tear, it’s classified as a 3C, but I’m not a doctor so I could be wrong on that. Whatever it is, it’s a bad one.
“He actually felt it when he sprinted with the ball, but he thought it was easing off so he played on for five minutes or so. We hoped that would mean that it wasn’t too bad with him having been able to do that, but we got the bad news on Tuesday morning.”
“Fin Back has a grade one hamstring tear, so that’s usually seven to ten days,” he explained. “If I’m being really optimistic, he has a chance for the weekend, but if I’m being realistic this Saturday is possibly too early. We’ll leave it until the last minute to make that call.
“There are a few other things we picked up from the game last weekend which I’m not going to talk about just yet.
“We’ll wait and see when the team is selected on Saturday. There are a few things where I’m hoping we’ll be ok, but that’s where we have to wait and assess it all as late as we possibly can.”
Looking at some of the others currently in the treatment room, he said: “Jamie Devitt is still a few weeks away in terms of being out on the grass but, as we said last week, he’s happy with the treatment and injections he’s had so far. It’s just a case of him keeping gong and plugging away.
“Joel Senior is still out there running and going through the final stages of his rehab, so we do have positives. He joined in with a passing session on Tuesday and he looks much happier for having done that.
“When I watched him running last week it still looked like he had a bit of a limp, but he’s much freer now and that’s another step forward. He has to be careful, we won’t rush him or risk him, but it’s nice for him and us that he’s progressing well.
“Tobi Sho-Silva was back on the grass with us today, so he’s coming ever closer, so bodies are starting to come close to a return. He’s possibly not ready for consideration on Saturday or Tuesday, but we’ll see how he goes through next week in terms of the Leyton Orient game.
“What I will say is that despite all of this we’ve done really well so far when you think about the problems we’ve had. We’ve got to make sure we keep doing that.
“It’s always about who we have, not who we don’t have. Those who are in the team, I expect them to go out and perform.
“We tend to concentrate on the negatives but Ryan Edmondson has had a great week, Ben Barclay has trained really well and he got his pitch time against Cleator Moor on Tuesday night, which was great to see.”
With him having mentioned the work done at the start of the week in attempt to highlight trends or traits, he spoke about the process of investigating everything from training to preparation in the search for a common denominator.
“There isn’t anything we could find,” he confirmed. “There are a lot of different things in play for different players. If we talk about Omari, for example, he has a history of hamstring strains.
“He hit the highest speed he’s managed this season in the game against Hartlepool and funnily enough, when we’ve gone through the GPS and tracked it back, it was when he was running with the ball.
“That’s unusual to hit your highest speed when you’ve got the ball at your feet. The scan he’s had is showing that the new injury is close to old scar tissue, so you can look at that and wonder if it’s having some kind of impact or affect.
“Fin was struggling with some sort of viral infection for a week or ten days before the Hartlepool game, and his body was a little bit weak, so maybe there’s something there.
“We’ve got players who are playing at this moment in time who are out there with niggles, but they’re playing through them because needs must. Maybe there’s a bit of an overload with that.
“There are possibly all sorts of reasons. We looked at our training sessions from last week and at what the physical load was from all of them, and we’re comfortable with what we did.”
“What I will say is that we trained on four different surfaces last week, and that’s a problem when you go from one to another,” he continued.
“Let’s say for example you train on 4G for the whole week, and then you play on grass, that’s actually ok.
“But if you go from one surface of grass to 4G, then the rain comes and you have to go on a different type of 4G the next day, and then it’s onto Hartlepool’s pitch, which was long and quite heavy, all of these things are stuff that you have to throw into the mix and try to work out whether there is a common thread to it.
“Sadly, there’s no definite answer, it looks like it could be a mix of all sorts of things. We’ve really drilled into it all as a group of staff through the early part of the week as to what the causes and reasons might be, but we can’t put our finger on it.
“I’ve been looking up and down the country and I’ve been getting calls from managers on the same subject. It’s happening to so many clubs.
“I’ve had National League managers ringing me, because they’re the only ones who can do deals at the moment, to check on player availability because they have so many players out with injury. There seems to be injuries everywhere.
“Liverpool, Man City, Man United – I read an article from the Sheffield United manager the other day and he’s talking about what they’re going through at the moment.
“There’s a lot of it around and we don’t know the answer. I mentioned the other week that there’s loads going on everywhere, but we’re the only ones concerned about.
“We’ll do everything we possibly can to try to come up with a solution to try and stop it. Maybe it just comes down to time and we keep our fingers crossed as we work our way through it.”
One thing that has to be reiterated is that the players who have been available have been absolutely fantastic.
“The league table is a really positive sign, and 21 points after 12 games is good as well,” he agreed. “Eight games unbeaten, a decent league position, these are rewards for hard work.
“We’re doing quite well at the moment with everything that’s going against us. We can’t use it as an excuse. It happens in sport and in a contact game like this.
“We had injuries going into last Saturday but we put in a really strong performance. We have to make sure we do the same again.
“We’ve got to take the positivity into the game against Doncaster and make sure we’re on the front foot and causing problems.
“I think this week coming up is going to be a really good marker for where we are as a group. That’s not just players, that’s the staff and the whole football club. Let’s go out there in a positive frame of mind and see what it brings us.”