Injury problems in defence for Paul Tisdale
Exeter City have a few injury problems in the centre of defence as they prepare to take on Doncaster Rovers at St James Park on Saturday.
Jordan Moore-Taylor and Luke Croll will both face late fitness tests to see if they can play in the match. Captain Moore-Taylor has a swollen ankle, while Luke Croll suffered concussion in the 3-0 win over Morecambe in late October and has not featured since.
To make matter worse 16-year-old Ethan Ampadu – who has played eight games at the centre of defence for City this season – has been called up to the Wales under-19 squad and Troy Brown and Troy Archibald-Henville are not fit enough to start a game yet having spent a lengthy spell out injured.
“We have got a number of players who we have question marks over and we won’t know if we can play them until Saturday,” said manager Paul Tisdale. “There is Luke Croll who was concussed and missed last Saturday. Ethan Ampadu is away on international duty and I am still about Troy (Brown) and Troy (Archibald-Henville) in terms of starts. Jordan Moore-Taylor has also got a black and blue ankle.
“We will have to wait and see what happens, but you come into coaching and management with the wonderful idea of picking your team early in the week and working on a system and the reality is that happens once in a blue moon. Most weeks you are hoping to get people back and at the moment we have got an abundance of attacking players fit and raring to go.
“It is shame Ethan is away because he played so well last week. Whatever position I would have put him in this week he would have been a dead cert (to start).”
City have yet to win at home in the League this season and were beaten 3-1 last weekend when they played Luton Town in the FA Cup. Luton were helped by a couple of dubious penalty decisions but considering they sat fourth in League Two when they came to St James Park, and Doncaster Rovers are currently third, is Tis expecting a similar challenge from Darren Ferguson’s side this weekend?
“I’m going to sound like a broken record, but every team at a professional level is a difficult opponent because they want to win just as much as you do,” said Tis. “And the gap between top and bottom is never that big and any team can beat any other team on a given day.
“So it is going to be a difficult game not least because we are back at home and we have not been at our best at home this season. They (Doncaster) have got their strengths and their weaknesses so it will be about doing our job to our best, stop them scoring and score more goals than them.”