Sam Ricketts talks to the press ahead of Friday evening’s Sky Bet League One fixture, as Town travel to Sincil Bank as they face Lincoln City.
Town’s loanee Callum Lang suffered a fractured metatarsal in the away fixture against Tranmere. Since then, Callum has undergone surgery to repair the fracture and will be out until after the Christmas period. “I'm just really disappointed for everyone, from his point of view and from the club’s point of view. I can remember him going down during the game and it came back that he thought he just rolled his ankle so I thought okay, you can usually just run them off. He tried to carry on and he couldn’t, so we took him off and then as it progressed over the next day or so, it became more his metatarsal than his ankle and we were hoping that it would settle down a bit and not be too bad but with the scan, unfortunately it came back with a crack on his metatarsal.”
Injuries are unfortunate and horrible; however, Town saw the return of Fejiri Okenabirhie come on against Tranmere after coming back from an injury that he picked up earlier on in the season. “Obviously we don’t want injuries, but we are fortunate with Fey and Dan, we’ve got a good few players at that end of the pitch and it is one area that we are strong in numbers.”
“Fey's fitness is good, he played in the Leasing.com competition and got a goal and played a large number of minutes which is really good. We just keep pushing him and trying to get him back up to as fit as we can make him.”
Town have been without a League game for over a week now. Town have been able to get good training sessions under their belt and have time to regroup and time to focus on getting three points at Lincoln. “So, the players had a few days off in terms of coming into the club. Just for a bit of physical and a bit mentally. At the same time, they were all given their GPS System to go away with and follow and individual training structure over those days. Nothing too strenuous but enough to keep them ticking over to make sure when we were back in and we were back in on Sunday that they were ready to train, and they certainly were.”
Omar Beckles, Aaron Pierre and Ryan Giles all returned back to training this week after having the week representing their country on international duty. “They’re all okay, they’ve all come back unscathed which is good. Different time zones for Omar and Pierre and we’re trying get them back on track as quickly as we can, but they’ve all come back unscathed which is the main thing.”
Town travel to Lincoln on Friday night. Lincoln have had an unsettled start to the season after appointing a new manager, but they have still managed to pick up some valuable points. “They are a good team with good momentum, they’ve had a good three or four successful years and they carry that through into the season. A few different results in and around the time that the Cowley’s left, getting beat at home by Oxford, but that was really uncharacteristic, and they’ve bounced back since then and they beat Sunderland 2-0 at home. They’re a good side, especially at home and really hard to play against.”
With Town going back to having games on Tuesday evenings and then again on Saturday, having a game on Friday evening will allow Town to have a few more hours rest and recovery. “It certainly doesn’t do any harm, an extra 25 hours recovery period going into the Gillingham game will help us. I think it’s something Lincoln do they like to play Friday nights for that reason really. Friday night games usually add a bit more atmosphere too so it should be a good game and a real tough place to go.”
Sam confirmed that there are no new injuries that have been picked up heading into the game tomorrow night.