Morpeth Town suffer another injury blow as Josh Robson is stretchered off
Josh Robson has joined Morpeth’s growing injury list.
The defender was worryingly carried off late on, with striker Sam Hodgson also withdrawn after feeling a pull, in last weekend’s narrow defeat at Prescot Cables which saw Morpeth slip to the bottom of the NPL Premier table.
But boss Craig Lynch revealed that Hodgson will be back in contention for a place in the squad on Saturday when Town take on NPL West side Witton Albion at Craik Park in the Emirates FA Cup second qualifying round.
“We’ve got players out of position and we’ve been hit with injuries. Hodgy has felt a bit of a twinge but should be fine and while Robbo’s injury isn’t as bad as we first thought, I think it will be a few weeks,” said Lynch.
“We’ve ended up with five or six teenagers on the pitch. We’ve got young lads, but that’s where we are at.”
With a number of experienced players out due to injury, suspension and availability, Lynch has brought in Leon Gibson-Booth on a month’s loan from Scarborough Athletic.
“Last year we had a good run, we didn’t get many injuries this early in the season. We’ve had some bad injuries like Danny (Barlow) in pre-season landing on his shoulder, Budds (Nathan Buddle) will be back soon from his concussion but he’s been out since the start of the season, Jeff (Henderson) and Dower’s (Will Dowling) were big misses in the middle – those two were away,” continued the boss.
Morpeth went behind on Merseyside when Finlay Cross-Adair netted from close range following good work by Jack Goodwin in the 34th minute and Cables made it two in first half added time as Ben Elliott made no mistake from penalty spot.
The amber and blacks pulled one back with a penalty themselves in the 71st minute when Aaron Chungh was brought down just inside the box and Luke James converted high into the roof of the net.
“We’ve not been far away and I don’t think we’ve looked like we’re miles off it, but last season we were horrible to beat and we were winning and we were drawing. This year we’ve got a good set of lads, but just a little bit too nice. Being nice gets you nowhere and we need to start looking at that because we created chances,” said Lynch