Buchanan could be fit for Cobblers’ clash with Wimbledon

Chris Wilder is remaining hopeful that David Buchanan could play a part in Cobblers’ game at AFC Wimbledon on Tuesday night.
David Buchanan picked up a knock during Cobblers' draw with Leyton Orient (picture: Kirsty Edmonds)David Buchanan picked up a knock during Cobblers' draw with Leyton Orient (picture: Kirsty Edmonds)
David Buchanan picked up a knock during Cobblers' draw with Leyton Orient (picture: Kirsty Edmonds)

But Ryan Cresswell is definitely out after suffering a knee problem in training last week and none of Northampton’s other injury victims will return in time.

Paul Corry, who is out for the season with a knee ligament injury, and Rod McDonald also sustained training ground injuries last week.

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Ricky Holmes and Brendan Moloney are also still sidelined, while left-back Evan Horwood will only be able to play a maximum of 15 minutes at Wimbledon if required.

And when asked for an injury update at Monday’s media session, Wilder said: “Where do we start?

“Ryan Cresswell went for a scan this morning, Dave Buchanan has been assessed over the weekend and hopefully he might be available for the game on Tuesday night.

“All of the others who we listed last week, there’s no real change on them and they are all unavailable.”

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Asked whether Horwood could start at left-back should Buchanan not make it, Wilder said: “No chance. Possibly 10 or 15 minutes at the max to see us to the back end of a game, but no way anything more than that.

“He’ll be involved again or we’ll possibly look at a couple of younger boys we’ve got out on loan because nunbers are really down at the moment.”

Despite their lengthy injury list, Cobblers have been performing admirably of late, picking up seven points from the last nine on offer.

That would have been a maximum had Leyton Orient not scored an agonising last-gasp equaliser at Sixfields on Saturday.

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And Wilder said: “It was one of the most difficult weeks we’ve had at the football club, losing the players we did and the situation we’re in.

“That made the result on Saturday night even harder to take because it would have been a brilliant result.

“I’m not dressing up the performance because it wasn’t great but it was certainly a fantastic effort to take the league leaders at the time to the 97th minute.

“We have to bottle that frustration up and move on to the game on Tuesday night because the games are coming thick and fast.

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“We’ve got some tough decisions to make, how we’re going to go about it and it really is everybody sticking their hand up and we’ll put a team out to go and get a result.

“As always in sport, you need that character and desire to do well and we certainly have that in bundles after what was a really difficult week for us all.”