Ian Evatt admits he’s experiencing the worst injury crisis of his career after confirming an extended spell on the sidelines for MJ Williams.
Williams joins midfield colleague Josh Sheehan on the absent list after dislocating a shoulder in Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at Wycombe Wanderers which will keep him out for the ‘foreseeable future’.
Defender Alex Baptiste also picked up a knee ligament injury in the game at Adams Park which will rule him out of Tuesday night’s visit of Doncaster Rovers.
Sheehan will miss the rest of the season with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament injury, while Wanderers are also missing Gethin Jones, Amadou Bakayoko, Andrew Tutte and Harry Brockbank.
But striker Eoin Doyle looks set to return against Rovers after a three-match absence with a calf injury.
And Evatt is looking for a united front on and off the pitch as Wanderers aim to back up a positive performance at Wycombe with a points’ winning one against Doncaster.
“In my entire career – let alone management career – I have never known a period where so many senior players can be missing at once,” said the Whites’ boss.
“We’re not talking about squad players here, we’re talking about our first XI. It’s been absolutely decimated.
“But there’s nothing we can do about it. We’ve got to crack on and as I said after the game on Saturday, it’s a bit of a siege mentality.
“It’s us against the world, kind of thing, and we need to have the fans on board with that and back the players because we can’t do anything about it until January.
“For now, we’ve got to do the best we can to find a way of getting results.
“It’s really tough but we’ve got a group that are willing to fight and scrap.
“The group we’ve got fit and available need all of the support we can get. We’re going to need them to find a way to get results. We need the fans to really help us.”
Wanderers are down to 13 fit, senior outfield players as they look to make it back-to-back home league wins following a 2-0 win over Crewe last time out at the University of Bolton Stadium.
And the impending return of Doyle could therefore not have been more timely.
“Eoin has come through training fine,” Evatt added.
“He’s been out for a little while now so we’ll have to manage our expectations but he’s put himself forward to play and that’s credit to him.”