Iron manager Russ Wilcox has confirmed that Sam Slocombe will play no part in either of the club’s two pre-season friendly matches on Tuesday evening.
United play non-league sides Winterton Rangers and Frickley Athletic tomorrow (both 7:00pm kick-offs) and Wilcox has stated that the Scunthorpe no.1 felt some tightness in his groin area following the 1-0 win over Huddersfield Town on Saturday.Fellow goalkeeper James Severn has also been suffering with injury recently but the manager is pleased to report an improvement on his situation.
Wilcox told The Iron Player: “Sam has got a bit of tightness in his groin area so he won’t feature on Tuesday.
“We can’t afford to risk him, especially as we’ve lost James Severn for seven to ten days.
“James hasn’t had a scan but he told me on Saturday that he feels a lot better.
“He was making good noises and it looks like his injury has improved.”
Paddy Madden bagged the only goal of the game against the Terriers in what was United’s fifth match of pre-season.
And Wilcox stated that, apart from Slocombe, everybody else came through the game unscathed and admitted that he was delighted with the attitude shown by the players.
“Everybody else is okay,” he continued.
“There are a lot of tight bodies because they had to work hard to get that result in probably 80 degrees of sunshine but I’m delighted with the group.
“I’m delighted with their attitude, application and their hard work because if you don’t work hard then you don’t win football matches.
“We showed both sides of our game in the way that we were hard working and organised when we were out of possession and that we had a good shape and we were creative when we were in possession.
“If we can keep on doing that then that will allow us to keep on winning football matches.”
Dave Syers and Deon Burton missed the game with Mark Robins’ side over the weekend with their respective ankle and knee injuries picked up during the match at Carlton last Wednesday.
Wilcox is still undecided if the pair will feature against either Winterton or Frickley and says that he will wrap them up in cotton wool in order to aid their recovery.
He added: “Deon has got a bit of a sore knee but that’s settled down well.
“He wanted to be involved against Huddersfield but we took him out of the frame and we’ll reassess him on Monday.
“Dave Syers’ ankle injury has settled down really well and I’ll be really disappointed if he’s not available for selection against Leicester.
“I’m not sure if I’m going to involve them on Tuesday night because I’ve got to make sure that I look after my players.
“We’ve gone to Carlton and picked up three injuries and sometimes when you go to non-league teams they want to show us what they’re all about and the tackles are not brilliant so I think I’ll wrap those players up in cotton wool next week.”
See much more from Russ Wilcox, and others, on The Iron Player.