On-loan striker Olufela Olomola is expected to miss tomorrow’s trip to high-flying Chesterfield, Yeovil Town manager Darren Sarll has said.
The Hartlepool United man came off after 56 minutes of the 1-1 draw at Maidenhead United after a heavy challenge.
Speaking ahead of the televised trip to the Peak District, the manager said he was trying to build the frontman up having played just over two games worth of football since the start of December.
Sarll said: “Fela has been great. He needs resilience in games and his fitness which was a tell-tale the other night when we had to bring him off.
“I don’t think he’ll make Saturday, but that will be beneficial for the long run in the way we have with Lawson (D’Ath).
“He’s not played (regularly) for three years, he’s not played more than 15 games in the season, so we need him to be resilient and robust to carry on for the rest of the season.”
The news is a blow for the Glovers with Olomola having scored his first goal in his third spell at the club in the week, leaving Reuben Reid and Adi Yussuf, who both came off the bench in Berkshire, as attacking options alongside Tom Knowles and Charlie Wakefield.
Sonny Blu Lo-Everton, who was an unused substitute, is the other option.
There were no questions asked in the pre-match ‘presser’ on Friday morning about whether on-loan central defender Ben Barclay would remain beyond his initial loan spell, which is up after the trip to Chesterfield.
Talking after the Maidenhead draw, Sarll said he was waiting on “the big man” to sign off on an extension to the loan – we’ll wait and see on Saturday if anyone asks him about it.
But, the boss did say that he would not be giving undue attention to former Yeovil man Joe Quigley who is likely to be in the opposition squad at the weekend.
He said: “There’s ten other players aside from Joe, he’s less than ten per cent of the team. You have to plan for how a team plays, not just Joe.
“We obviously know Joe and his attributes, but they may use him in a different way that we used them. Unless you are on the training pitch with the squad he’s in, they might want something completely different from what I wanted.
“There’s no acceleration in getting a plan of how they are going to attack because Joe is in there.”
Sarll also revealed the club was facing a disciplinary charge after the incident which saw Knowles booked in the goalless draw at Eastleigh following a clash with the hosts’ Ryan Hill.
The incident – watch it again here at 02:22 – appeared to show Hill shove Knowles to the floor in retribution for what he saw as a late challenge on Spitfires’ keeper Joe McDonnell.
Both Hill and Knowles received yellow cards for their part in the scuffle.
Sarll said: “We are talking to the FA now about a punishment to our players because Tom Knowles got thrown to the floor against Eastleigh.
“We went over to the referee to say ‘you can’t do that!’, if he ran up in the street and did that, that’s assault.
“I just can’t work out where they are coming from. I’m 19-1 down to the FA now!”
That response came to a question about the two goals we had ruled out at Maidenhead in midweek with the manager concluding that Reid was offside for a late ‘winner’.
But, he questioned how defender Luke Wilkinson‘s first half header was ruled out for a foul on Magpies’ striker Nathan Blissett.
Sarll said: “The second goal is offside. I have watched Wilkinson’s goal a million times and that was a perfectly good goal.
“That is a side of our game that we are improving on in recent weeks, our attacking set plays have got better.”