Iron boss Mark Robins said that every member of his squad had a valuable part to play in United’s 4-2 win against Sheffield Wednesday on Wednesday.
Paddy Madden twice restored parity after Scunthorpe fell behind with terrific strikers finishes, with Kevin van Veen and Kyle Wootton netting the goals which took the game beyond the Owls.“If Paddy gets the headlines, it would be rightly so,” he told The Iron PlayerHD.
“But you could also write about the rest of the squad. The rest of the team performed very, very well. It’d be wrong to just name one, because they’ve all worked hard, all put a shift in and all passed the ball pretty well.
“But for those mistakes, we don’t concede a goal – and the good thing is we can eradicate those mistakes and from then on, we were pretty good in what we did.”
Madden has seven goals in pre-season to date, while Kyle Wootton has notched three and Kevin van Veen has two to his name. The United manager, therefore, is delighted the goals are being spread around the pitch – with Luke Williams, Andrew Boyce and Sean McAllister also on the scoresheet in the games so far.
“It’s always good (to spread the goals),” he stated.
“We have a lot of players who want to score goals and that is always a good sign. We have players who are hungry.
“We’ve obviously got one or two niggling injuries, which isn’t great. They will be fit, hopefully on Monday, for a full week’s training, which will enable them to be included in the squad at the end of the week.
“I think that will also include Hakeeb (Adelakun), which is great.”
Absent from the game against the Owls included Scott Wiseman, Gary McSheffrey, Luke Williams and Jamie Ness – but the Scunthorpe gaffer expects all to resume full training on Monday morning and be fit for the opening match five days later.
“All of them are there or there abouts with their training,” he added.
“There’s just no point in throwing them into games like this when you want everybody fit and available for the start of the season. We are giving them as much time as we can do and they’re going to need to do some work obviously. They’ve done the bulk of it, but will need to do some more.
“Jamie Ness is playing catch-up a little bit anyway as he came in a little later, but we would expect them to all be back in on Monday.
“Scott Wiseman’s injury is just one where it’s something out of nothing. There’s a bit of pain and fatigue in a tendon and he’s just resting it. He trained the other day, but felt it, so there’s no point in risking it."
The Iron had trialist Dan Harding available for selection against Sheffield Wednesday, with the former Ipswich and Southampton player set to feature at Notts County on Friday, with clarification given over United’s other trialist.
“Dan will play on Friday night against Notts County and then we will take it from there,” he stated.
“It was an opportunity that came up that suited us to get him in and take a look at him. We’ll do that on Friday and he’s come in to get some fitness.
“Nathaniel Mendez-Laing moved on after the Hartlepool game.”
See much more from Mark Robins on The Iron PlayerHD.