Jamie Ward and Matthew Lund missed last week’s game through injury and the manager explained that the former will miss this Saturday’s game, although the latter could be available.
Hurst told iFollow Iron: “Jamie Ward will be out still, just with his hamstring. He’s going to get a small injection to see if that can be settled down. There’s no major area that’s particularly torn so we’re hoping he can be back in contention for the away game at Leyton Orient next week. It’s been a difficult one to get him involved without overloading him.
“Lundy is a little more up in the air in terms of whether he’ll be available. He could be available for the Crawley game but it’s down to personal circumstance whether he’ll be involved or not. Fitness-wise, he should be okay, but we’ll take it day-by-day and see how he is. That will be a later decision. He has had a little injection in his knee just to settle things down. There are no major concerns at this time.”
The game will come too soon for Kgosi Ntlhe (groin), George Miller (quad strain) and Jordan Hallam (hamstring), with the boss adding: “Kgosi will be back in full training next week all being well, though he has been doing some work on the grass.
“If George Miller continues the way he’s progressing, he’s another one who could be back with us next week. Because of how long he’s been out, we’ll have to check on him.
“Jordan Hallam remains out but he’s doing work out on the grass, which is a good sign, but that still doesn’t mean he’s ready to be fully involved just yet.”
Out on loan at Wrexham, James Horsfield suffered an injury last weekend and faces a lengthy spell out.
Hurst continued: “James has suffered an ACL injury for Wrexham and will require surgery on that. It’s bad news for him as he’d just gone out, started playing and by all accounts done well in the games he’d played. He’ll get the support required in terms of getting him back fit and coming back stronger.”
“Jordan Clarke (recently out following an appendix operation) and Andy Dales (calf) have been training and were due to play at Mansfield (for the Under-23s) on Tuesday. The lads went across there and unfortunately the game failed a pitch inspection. They did some training there on the 4G, which isn’t ideal but they needed to do something. We’ll see how they keep going but both seem in a pretty good place. We just have to make sure they are ready. I’d imagine, as we speak, both will be travelling down to Crawley and will be part of the matchday squad.”
Previewing the FA Cup first round clash at the People’s Pension Stadium, the boss said: “I’m one of those who still firmly believes it’s a great competition, and maybe more so for the League One, Two and non-league teams because our aim first and foremost is to try and get into the third round and see if we can get a good draw – whether that’s a Premier League team coming here, or getting to travel to one of their grounds; that’s the aim.
“First and foremost we have try and get through to the second round. That will be no easy feat against Crawley, who started the season very well. They had a good run in the Carabao Cup and they’ve already seen the rewards a good cup run can bring.
“It’s another team from the same league but ultimately both teams will think they have a decent chance of getting through. The positives to it are we know the opposition, have played against them already and both teams had good spells in that game. Crawley started better and went ahead, we then got back into it, levelled and got ahead, missing the chance to put it to bed, and Crawley then finished strongly, having the equaliser and Rory saving a penalty. A draw was the fair result on the day.
“We’d have preferred a home game but it is what it is and we’ll go down there trying to get through. We’ll be treating it like a league game (in terms of team selection).”
The boss finished his press conference by congratulating the Under-18s side on beating Notts County 1-0 after extra time on Tuesday to progress to the second round of the FA Youth Cup.
He said: “It’s great for the Under-18s to get through. I watched them play against Notts County earlier in the season and felt it was a game they could win. It took them a long time to get there but in the end they got that win, and they showed good character to get through. They have a really good chance of getting to the third round and it’s important they show the right attitude. We congratulate Tony (Daws), Steve (Thornber) and the lads, and hopefully they can continue their progress.”
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