Town will hand Lloyd Jones a late fitness test ahead of tomorrow’s Sky Bet League One fixture against Gillingham at The County Ground.
minute.rdThe centre-back, who has racked up 30 appearances for the Reds this season, hobbled off during the impressive 3-1 win away at Coventry on Saturday after taking a heavy blow to his leg and was replaced by Dion Conroy in the 73
Jones has been in impressive form in recent weeks and has formed solid partnerships with Raphael Rossi-Branco and Nathan Thompson at the heart of the defence.
As a result, Town are desperate to have the defender available for their crunch clash against the Gills on Tuesday (7.45pm Kick-Off) and will give him every chance to prove his fitness.
“We need to wait until tomorrow to give Lloyd the best possible chance - he deserves to play,” Head Coach Luke Williams said at his pre-match press conference earlier today.
“We’ll give him every chance to do that.
“Lloyd had a scan earlier today and we think that it may be difficult because of the swelling in there and probably some bleeding, but hopefully with the experience of the people at Swindon and maybe a second opinion as well, we’ll be able to have a good idea of what we think the extent is.
“The problem is in the hamstring/glute area.”
Meanwhile, Yaser Kasim will miss out tomorrow evening as the midfielder continues to be hampered by a troublesome ankle injury.
“Yaser has not been able to train and he’s feeling too much discomfort in the ankle, so he’s not there at the moment,” he continued.
However, Williams confirmed that he has no other injury concerns to contend with ahead of tomorrow’s vital encounter with the Gills.
“There are no fresh injury concerns. There’s lots of achy legs but nothing worse than that,” he added.
Finally, Raphael Rossi-Branco is available for selection again after serving a two-match suspension and he could come straight back into the Starting XI tomorrow evening with Lloyd Jones doubtful for the game.
“If Raphael Rossi-Branco is coming in for Lloyd Jones then it is somebody who has been there so often and somebody that everybody in that team has played alongside at some point, so I don’t think it will be too drastic a change,” Williams said.
“Both Lloyd and Raphael have been with us right from the very beginning of the campaign, but it is important to try and keep some level of consistency.”
