Northampton Town to make assessment of Heath calf injury

It has been confirmed that Heath suffered a calf strain in the warm-up for Saturday’s win over Newport County but the extent of the injury is not yet known.

The situation is a perilous one for the player because he is currently only at Sixfields on a week-to-week contract.

Losing Heath for an extended period of time would also be a blow to manager Aidy Boothroyd, who is already without club captain Kelvin Langmead, who is currently recovering from a knee operation.

“He felt it in the warm-up on Saturday and he wanted to play but I decided against doing that,” confirmed Boothroyd.

“What I don’t want to do is lose another centre-back. We’ll see how he is before we make any decisions about anything.

“He will be treated by our physios and we’ll make sure he’ll be looked after properly. As the week goes on we’ll know how serious it is and we’ll have to see how it is.”

In Heath’s absence, Ben Tozer played in central defence and he will be on standby to do so at Southend United on Saturday.

But Boothroyd felt Heath’s presence in the back four was missed.

“It’s disappointing because he is a big, honest lad and we could have done with him on Saturday being the big lighthouse heading everything away,” he said.

“But we adapted well and got over it.”