Matt Taylor revealed he’ll have a few doubts in the Exeter City squad ahead of this evening’s game against Lincoln City.
Taylor has been in charge of the Grecians for a little over a week and is still feeling his way through the squad, which has been hit by injury in recent months.
While we nurse Jack Moylan back to health, and are set to be without James Collins, Oscar Thorn, Adam Jackson and Freddie Draper, Taylor has injury issues of his own.
He has seen players coming back of late, but one player whose absence will be felt is Sunderland loanee Timur Tutierov. He went down in the warm-up as they lost to Barnsley this weekend and is set to miss out.
“He’ll have a scan,” he said in his pre-match press conference. “Yeah, felt his hamstring back end of the week. It’s an example of a young player with a lot of load going through his body for the first time in his career. Different pitches, different surfaces, different opposition, different asks of him physically and mentally.
“So he’ll have a scan. We’ll assess that. It didn’t seem too bad at the time but it was bad enough for him to be taken out of the match day squad.”
In recent weeks, Ed Turns, Johnly Yfeko, Jack Fitzwater, Jake Doyle-Hayes and Pedro Borges have all been out with injury, and none of those are expected to play a major role this evening.
“In terms of the other injuries we’ve got, they’re getting assessed on a daily basis. There’s still hope that some will feature at different stages throughout the course of the remainder of the season.”
Former Brentford trainee Reece Cole is expected back, but not in the starting XI. He appeared from the bench in their 2-1 defeat against Barnsley, his first outing since February 7.
“Reece probably isn’t in a position to play major minutes as yet so we’ll still be in the building phase, but delighted to have him back,” added Taylor.
Two other players who would have been expected to play are Ed James and Danny Andrew, both on the comeback trail as Exeter attempt to halt their slide towards League Two, but neither is likely to impact the game against the Imps.
“I’ve seen Danny Andrew on the training pitch, Ed James not as yet, so he’s probably a little bit further behind. I think one’s coming back from injury, one coming back from an injury and a loan. What that looks like we’ve not been able to train enough for me to really tell you.”
It’s getting to the time of the season where the long schedule is impacting players’ bodies and many clubs have suffered with injury issues. For Exeter City, a club who have a smaller budget than us, it is difficult to manage that, especially with a Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday schedule. Throw in the league leaders coming, followed by the team in second a few days later, and it’s a difficult situation for them.
They’ll be hoping to take something tonight to give their patched-up squad hope for the next month or two.