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Wanderers are facing a race to bring in new signings after losing THREE players in one night against Cheltenham Town.
Ian Evatt could be down to just 16 first team players for the trip to Carlisle United on Saturday after Randell Williams and Kyle Dempsey picked up injuries and George Thomason a 10th league yellow card of the season – which totals a two-game ban.
Carlos Mendes Gomes is travelling back from the Ivory Coast, where he has been in action at the AFCON for Guinea Bissau and expected to arrive back on Thursday.
Evatt is keeping his fingers crossed that Dempsey overcomes a muscular issue picked up in the final few minutes of Tuesday night’s game – but with Williams now out for three or four weeks and Thomason missing Carlisle and the home match with Barnsley, the pressure is on to find new recruits.
“It isn’t ideal,” the manager said of his injury situation. “It is the same hamstring for Randell, we don’t think it is a really bad one but it is significant enough to miss the same as Will (Forrester).
“Demps is more neural, we’re hopeful anyway. We will have to see how it settles and then make a call on it.
“Carlos is en route, which is good news. Look, we are going to have to do some business, and we will do some business.”
Evatt has also confirmed that Gethin Jones has not picked up any issues whilst on international duty with Australia, having been left out of the squad for their final group game against Uzbekistan.
The Socceroos drew the game 1-1 and advance to the knockout round to face either Palestine or Indonesia on Saturday.
“I spoke to Gethin yesterday,” he said. “He had played the first two games and his data had spiked, so because they were already through Australia felt they could look after him a little bit, which is music to my ears.
“He has progressed to the next stage and phase, and the way Australia are going we are not banking on having him back until mid-February.”
Wanderers survived a stormy night against Cheltenham to gain a win that puts them third in the table, a point behind Peterborough United with a game in hand. They are also two behind leaders Portsmouth, who have played twice more.
Evatt accepted that the performance was not a vintage one but was pleased to get the points despite the conditions the game was played in.
“I think it was a lot more difficult than it probably felt in the stands,” he said.
“We seem to keep running into Storm A to Z at the minute, I don’t know which one it is right now.
“But in winter football you have to find different ways to win games and it is the work the players have done, and the manner we normally win games which gives you that deflated feeling when we have had to grind, graft and dig one out. The players should take great heart and credit from that.
“You have to give great credit to Cheltenham, by the way, because I thought they came with a really good plan. They were fresh after two weeks off and asked us a lot of questions in the conditions – direct play, set plays, long throws. We had to defend our box well and we did it reasonably well. That last minute block was fantastic.
“It is three points on the board, we are closer to our target, and we can just focus again on Saturday.”
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