Hospitalised Howells shrugs off knock to face Grimsby

The left-back had to be substituted early in the first half in Saturday’s goalless draw against Wrexham and was even take to hospital as a precaution.

Buckle said: “He’s going to be all right. Jake’s OK. He’s not trained this week. He joined in the latter part of training yesterday, again, which isn’t ideal. But he’s such a big player for us Jake, he’s such a consistent performer and someone you can really rely on all the time in a number of positions.

“He can play left-back, central midfield or wide left. If we decide to change our formation away from home then he’s someone who plays a big part. I’m glad we’ve got him, but he’s not the one we are probably going to be missing.

“I’m waiting now on the physio to see what the outcome is so we can get on with the training and prepare around it.”

And Buckle admitted that Town’s management were unaware of his knock for some time on Saturday.

He added: “It was from the kick-off and I actually didn’t realise that. We’ve blamed Jake for the first five minutes of the game where they got us down that side. But he said he couldn’t see, he was really struggling the poor lad.

“He conveyed that to Beckwith, but whether Deano heard him or not I don’t know because he had enough on his plate with (Andy) Bishop. He got a real bad whack and when balls are hit on the diagonal like that was from the kick-off and you get two players going for it, you can’t help but use your arms, you have to use your arms to jump. There was no malice in it from the other lad. He’s just caught Jake in the head and it was a sore one.”