There is good and bad news on the injury front for the Grecians

Exeter City are hopeful that some of their injured players will be able to return in time for the Grecians to host Cheltenham Town on Saturday. A depleted City side were beaten 2-1 at home by Leyton Orient on Saturday, a result that saw them drop down from first to third in the League One table.

 

City were without two players on international duty in Vil Sinisalo and Ilmari Niskanen who were away with Finland. A further six potential starters were all out injured.

The Finnish duo will be back for the clash at St James Park on Saturday – although Niskanen lasted just 13 minutes on Sunday as Finland were beaten 1-0 by Denmark. But manager Gary Caldwell is not certain that any of the others who missed out – Admiral Muskwe, Vincent Harper, James Scott, Harry Kite, Cheick Diabate, or Jack Aitchison will be able to start – while Dion Rankine will be sidelined for a while.

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“An injury crisis at the time feels bad, but quickly you can come out of it,” Caldwell said. “Hopefully some of them will be seven-to-ten days away and can be back, and it will be huge to get them back.”

Harry Kite, who has missed the whole season so far, was out running on Saturday and is getting close to returning from a knee injury. James Scott was on the bench for the defeat to Orient, although Caldwell admitted it was a decoy not to show the O’s just how depleted City were and that while he got through the warm-up, he was never going to feature – but could be available next week.

Harper could also be back in time for Saturday, having picked up a knock in training on Tuesday, as might Muskwe, perhaps the most important of the absentees given City looked very light upfront at the weekend with a lack of options to play in the frontline alongside Sonny Cox. The Luton Town loanee picked up a minor hamstring injury in a behind-closed-doors game on Wednesday.

“Ads had a hamstring issue, ” Caldwell said of the absence from the squad on Saturday. “We hope it is a seven-to-ten day thing, which we think it is, but we have to build him up gradually. But it is a warning shot, it could have been worse, and we hope we caught it in time to hopefully be fit next week, if not the following week.

“We are potentially looking at a few options to add to the squad and to bring others in as well as hoping for the injured players to be back. But the challenge is, as happened to Ads, they are not fully up to speed and we have to manage them to avoid the risk of injury.”

 

One player though who will be out for a while is Chelsea loanee Rankine. The 20-year-old went off injured last week during the 1-0 win at Burton Albion with a hamstring injury, which will rule him out for at least six weeks. The youngster has returned to the Premier League outfit for treatment, and is unlikely to feature for the Grecians before the end of October.

“Dion will be out for six-to-eight weeks,” the manager added. “He is back with Chelsea at the moment. He has been amazing for us but having to play so many minutes with others out and the delay getting Ilmari in has come at a cost. We hope it is closer to six weeks rather than eight but we will liaise with Chelsea to get him back as soon as we can.”