Lancaster City boss reflects on their bizarre number of injuries

​The Dolly Blues are hovering just above the relegation zone in the NPL Premier Division after successive 2-0 defeats away at leaders South Shields and play-off hopefuls Warrington Town on Saturday and Tuesday respectively.

City’s struggles with an unusual amount of injuries to kept players this season has been well documented.

On Saturday, they were only able to name three substitutes and were forced to field sub goalkeeper Curtis Anderson as a striker following injuries to both Brad Carroll and Christian Sloan.

New signings Matthew Tweedy and Nathan Woodthorpe went straight into the starting XI for the trip the Wire, while Fell named three Under-23s players on his bench in the shape of Shae Cannon, Joel Davidson and Jenson Butterworth.

"We did some data and 247 times this season we have not been able to pick a player in 32 games,” Fell said following Tuesday night’s defeat.

"So every game we have played, 8.7 members of our squad have not been available. I am not sure that will ever happen at any club. That is craziness.

"We certainly look at ourselves in terms of is it something we are doing in training.

"But if you look at the injuries, they are dislocated shoulders or ankles, cuts to the head or broken arms.

"If you come to places like Warrington Town with half a team then you’re going to struggle. I was disappointed with the way we played second half, first half I thought we were very much in the game."

Despite the current difficult period, Fell is determined to fight on and turn the club's fortunes around, starting with the visit of FC United of Manchester to Giant Axe this weekend.

"We have two choices,” he said. “We can go under in our situation or we can roll our sleeves up.

"I will work with the Board this week to try to get another couple in because we need another couple in.

"We might get Christian Sloan back for the weekend, but we won’t have Patrick Allington, Andy Teague, Jamie Mellen – we will obviously be without Charlie Bailey and Jake Connelly.

"FC United have sold Regan Linney this week and the intelligence we have is that they will be reinvesting that money into the team, so they will might have a couple of new players.”