Chris Agutter has said he won’t rotate ahead of Saturday’s FA Cup tie with AFC Telford United.
The Head Coach has once again made his attitude towards winning clear, adding that he doesn’t envisage rotating at all and will look to play the team he believes will most capable of winning against the Bucks.
“If you’ve got the shirt and you’re playing well you keep it, if you haven’t got the shirt then you need to improve your level of performance and take it off someone else. We’re very clear on that and that won’t change for sure.”
Alex Woodyard returned to action for the first time since August with an appearance off the bench against Guildford City, and despite his keenness to get the midfielder back out from the off, Agutter said that he is nearly ready to start, but tomorrow’s match will come too soon for it.
“We need that personality, we need that extra leader on the pitch. Fortunately we have a fantastic medical team who are saying let’s look after the short-term for the longer term.”
The same can be said for David Ogbonna who continues to recover from a hamstring problem which caused him to miss the West Ham United game in the National League Cup, and he has subsequently been absent ever since.
While he was previously thought to be ready to return for tomorrow’s match, Agutter has opted to remain cautious regarding the former Slough Town forward, who was training away from the group at Tuesday’s open training session alongside Eduino Vaz.
“We’re still not sure if he’s ready to go, what we don’t want to do is rush him back and lose for the longer term, especially when he’s such an important player for us.”
Vaz himself looks to be a couple of weeks away from returning to action, having remained unavailable since picking up an MCL injury against Forest Green Rovers.
Agutter said he completed his first session with the rest of the team today in terms of unopposed elements of training, but has made positive steps despite still being unable to get involved in full contact training.
Jack Sims is another who made really good progress, especially in the last week or so according to the Head Coach, and will be hoping to return to action sooner rather than later after missing the last month due to a back injury.
