Two injury concerns for Hartlepool United ahead of Stockport County clash as Dave Challinor ponders defensive reinforcements

Lewis Cass went off late on during Saturday’s FA Trophy penalty shoot out defeat at Halifax Town while captain Ryan Donaldson also suffered a knock.

“Lewis doesn’t look like he’ll be available, it’s his hamstring which is a big blow and we’ll have to see how he settles but unless we have a Lazarus moment, there’s no chance he’ll be available for Tuesday,” Challinor said.

“Ryan has tweaked his medial and we’re hoping he’s just jarred his knee. He was able to compete the game which is a positive but we’ll wait and see on him, fingers crossed he’s okay."

Despite Donaldson missing a penalty in the shootout, Challinor was quick to defend his captain.

“He’s important to us, he takes criticism and no doubt he will again after missing a penalty but penalties are by the by,” added the Pools boss.

“He’s someone who I trust as a player and does a great job regardless of where he plays and he’s an unselfish character.

"He could probably do with being a bit more selfish at times and that’s something I’ve spoken to him about. But we’ll need all of our experience out there on Tuesday so hopefully he’ll be okay.”

Challinor also assessed his options should he be without Cass and Donaldson on Tuesday night. And he hasn’t ruled out bringing in reinforcements.

“It’s a tough one to manage, we can always look at things in terms of personnel where we could look to bring someone in short term,” he added.

“We’ve had different lads in training with us so it’s an option but our other option would be to play Timi [Odusina] or Tyler [Magloire] as a right-back.

"Timi has played for me as a full-back at Fylde and Tyler has done the same for Rochdale.

"It’s not like they can’t do a job there, it’s not their best position because they’re centre-backs but if we needed them to do a job then they could fill in if need be. We’ll just see where we’re at on Monday and deal with it from there.”

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