Henry out for Hatters’ opening home clash

Hatters will be without Ronnie Henry for tomorrow night’s Skrill Premier home clash against Salisbury City, writes Mike Simmonds.
Ronnie Henry is out of Tuesday's clash with Salisbury CityRonnie Henry is out of Tuesday's clash with Salisbury City
Ronnie Henry is out of Tuesday's clash with Salisbury City

The skipper missed Saturday’s pre-season opener against Southport with a back injury and it looks to have kept him out for tomorrow’s game too.

Still said: “Ronnie, not tomorrow, but probably by the weekend. His back went into spasm, I don’t really know why, but he’s seen the chiropractor and doesn’t see it a problem

“I think it will be a couple of days though.”

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With Henry out, Still expects midfielder Jonathan Smith to continue at full back, despite not the greatest performance at the weekend.

He continued: “Smudger’s been put in a couple of times in that position last year.

“He’s done fine, did he play great Saturday? No. But as I said before, who played great Saturday?
“Jonathan’s done very well. He’s played that position and I’m looking at that as a particular weakness as I could have look at a few areas of weakness.”

Striker Jon Shaw remains a doubt as he also missed the trip to Merseyside, but there was better news on midfielder Alex Lawless, who was put through his paces at Haig Avenue.

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Still said: “Jon trained a bit today, we didn’t push him but we’ll have a look at how he is tomorrow.

“Alex trained again today. We have a development game on Wednesday which I’m sure that he’ll play in.

“That’s not to say he won’t be involved on the bench on Tuesday. One of the problems is he hasn’t played.

“If he had played we could say yes, we’ll put you on the bench. That’s not to say we won’t do though, we’ll see how feels tomorrow.”
Despite the disappointing performance at Southport, Still doesn’t anticipate making major surgery to his side, as he added: “I think other than Ronnie Henry, it was the same team that scored seven against Arsenal.

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“Jon Shaw started against Arsenal and came off at 1-0. That team played very, very well, it looked solid and had more than enough attacking options.

“With Jon not being available, it made sense really as it’s not broke don’t fix it.
“We went with that and it didn’t play very well. When you look for reasons, sometimes you can go too deep.

“We didn’t play well, individually, we didn’t play well. Sometimes you can say, should we have played this team, should we have played that team.
“That team scored six goals against Arsenal here, not only scored six, but played well as it wasn’t like it was just our day.

“Individually, people didn’t play to the standard they did pre-season and I’m the manager and have to take full responsibility for that.

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“I’ve looked at that today in training. We’ve had a long talk about it and the players were disappointed about their performances,

“I’ve told them that through the season they’ll get beat as we all get beat. It’s how you respond to those performances, disappointment and defeat.”

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