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Trio's fitness fight

Gavin Browne
17/ 3/2008

JOHN Sheridan is sweating on the fitness of Mark Allott, Mark Crossley and Lewis Alessandra ahead of two games in 48 hours that could make or break Latics’ season.

Despite losing 3-0 at Luton Town and slipping down to 12th place, Athletic are only three points away from the final play-off position in League One.

Consequently, the Easter fixtures against Millwall and Doncaster Rovers could go a long way towards determining whether Athletic have anything to play for - apart from pride - going into April.

However, that may depend on how quickly Sheridan's absentees return after the Latics boss could only name four substitutes for the trip to Kenilworth Road.

Throw in a one-game ban for Reuben Hazell after his red card and it was a day to forget in Bedfordshire, not least for Sheridan.

With 19 players injured, he was forced into fielding 19-year-old keeper Richard O'Donnell, signed on a seven-day loan from Sheffield Wednesday barely 24 hours before kick-off.

Sheridan said: "You could see the team wasn't right. It wasn't strong enough, we had too many key players missing to come to Luton and try to win the game.

"Even though I think Luton have got some of the best players in the division, I think there was an opportunity for us, but what you could see was we had no strength in depth.

"I felt sorry for Richard. I had a young keeper who came in and made three great saves, but I've never known a team give a young keeper so many backpasses on his debut - that's our naivety and personnel showing.

"The first half was very frustrating to watch. Some of our play wasn't the standard I want from my team because I know we can do a lot better."