Preston North End injury update as Lewis Gibson and Caleb Wiley absent against Lincoln City
They have picked up knocks during the week.
Paul Heckingbottom has issued an injury update after Lewis Gibson and Caleb Wiley were absent for Preston North End’s defeat to Lincoln City.
Gibson picked up a knock towards the end of Tuesday’s game, while Wiley is being treated with caution after a long spell out with an adductor injury while on loan at Watford last season.
The North End manager is hopeful they will be back in the fold soon.
“Little injuries,” he said, “Nothing significant, we hope.
“Gibbo just felt his groin at the back end of the last game. We'd made all the subs and he was fine to carry on, but hopefully he'll be over that soon enough.
“And Caleb, we know he was recovering from an injury and that journey the other day stiffened him up afterwards, so we took him out, he's recovered well and I wouldn’t be surprised if he's training on Monday.”
Andrew Hughes returned from injury in the latter stages of Saturday’s game, but the fact that members of the squad are suffering from knocks just as others are returning will frustrate Heckingbottom, who wants individual players to build consistency, performance and fitness-wise.
“They are minor ones, but you've got to deal with it”, he told the Lancashire Post.
“When you're talking about consistency and how we played and types of games, I think they've done really well.
“Gibbo’s had probably some of the best games he's had, playing that outside centre-back and being more positive, because the majority of his games and his best performances have been in the middle.
“So, he was getting into some good form there, definitely.
“If Caleb had come in when we didn't have a lot of midweek games, he'd maybe not have missed as many.
“But we knew we were going to have to be patient with him.
“Again, we're really pleased we got him in. As he gets fitter and he gets more game time, he'll become more available to play.”