Ford fears injuries could impact United's season

The Puritans head to high-flying Royston Town for Saturday’s BetVictor Southern League clash without a win in their last two outings.

That has seen the Puritans slip out of the play-off positions in Premier Central while Royston cemented third spot with an impressive victory at Coalville Town on Saturday. United slipped to a rare home reverse against Peterborough Sports, a defeat which showed up the club’s lack of cover when injuries take their toll.

Lee Henderson, Claudio Dias and Giorgio Rasulo all missed last weekend’s game and Pablo Haysham was added to that list after picking up an injury in it.

Henderson may be fit to return at Royston, Rasulo should have recovered from illness but Haysham will be out for six weeks and Dias still looks a few weeks away. So Aston Villa’s Jake Walker has joined the club on-loan until the end of the season and Ford is hopeful of adding at least one more player before the weekend.

Ford said: “The club will not want to go over budget even for a month to cover injuries and a lot of other clubs are in a similar position. But we can’t keep waiting on players to get fit or we will risk letting our season slip away.

“When you look at the team at the end of Saturday’s game, we had some very young players out there, players who are still trying to make their way in the game.

“We missed Claudio Dias, Lee Henderson and Giorgio Rasulo before the game and then lost Pablo Haysham during it. They are four players that would be involved from the start most weeks and we missed their experience.

“The difficulty of trying to bring in anyone is that an injured player still costs the club money and then you have to pay out more if you want to get a senior player, or you get another young player who does not have the experience.”