Pope To Play Through Pain?

Assistant manager Neil Baker has revealed that striker Tom Pope may have to play despite breaking his toe.

Pope was ruled out for most, if not all of the remaining games of the season after a discovering a small break in a toe. The lack of his presence up front was telling on Saturday as the Alex crashed to a 2-1 defeat in Luton, with a pretty toothless attack.

Unable to bring anyone in from the outside now, the Alex’s only option may be to get Pope playing through the pain barrier. The 6ft 3in suffered a bad reaction after playing with the injury during Easter weekend but Neil Baker feels Pope may just have to take the pain.

Speaking to The Sentinel newspaper, Baker said that whilst playing the Stoke born striker this weekend is out of the question he may be thrown in before the end of the season.

Baker admitted: ”If we’re forced to play him and he can stand the pain we might have to. I don’t think he will be ready for next week, but we might have to throw him in at some stage. That’s the biggest complement we can pay him.”

Meanwhile, Dean Morgan does look set to play this weekend at home to Southend. The loanee striker sat out Saturday due to rules stating he couldn’t play against his parent club but after extending his loan last week Morgan will hope to end the excellent run of the club where he spent two months earlier this season. Southend are currently unbeaten in nine league games.

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