Town boss Paul Hurst admitted that it was the wrong decision to involve Jon Walters in today’s 0-0 home draw with Bolton, the Ireland international having suffered a calf injury soon after coming on in the second half.
Walters picked up an achilles injury at Hull a week ago and missed Tuesday’s 1-1 draw with Brentford as a result.
"We were being radioed that it’s his calf,” Hurt confirmed after being asked about the injury. "He went straight in the medical room so I haven’t got a definite [view] and they might not even know at this stage in terms of how bad or how long he’ll be out.
"He was certainly limping very heavily. Will he go for a scan? I’m not the medical department but that’s seems the usual route and until we’ve seen that we won’t know.
"Clearly it was the wrong decision to involve him and I’m the one to make that decision. But I think Jon would certainly be the first one to say that he trained yesterday and said he felt fine.
"We said we’d look at it again in the morning to see if anything developed overnight and he said he felt fine.
"He’s an experienced pro, I’m sure desperate to be involved, but if he didn’t feel he was right he wouldn’t have put himself up for selection.
"There’s an element with the crowd of him giving them a lift and ultimately giving the team a lift, using someone of that status, plus he’s an obvious goal threat, so that was sad to lose him.
"I still felt like we had the man advantage in the last 15 minutes. I don’t know whether Bolton were happy to carry on as they were, but it didn’t feel as though they changed anything in terms of it being 10 v 10 and the numbers evening up.”
Does he regret having played Walters, who turned 35 earlier in the week? "That depends how long he’s out for and how bad that is. Was it a calculated risk? Genuinely the information we were getting was that he wouldn’t make anything any worse.
"I think it’s his calf rather than his achilles, but at the same time while I’m not a physio I know sport and your bodies and maybe his other muscles were compensating for that more and working harder and therefore that’s what’s happened.
"All we can do is keep our fingers crossed now that it’s not anything too bad that will keep him out for too long.”
Hurst confirmed that Janoi Donacien missed out purely as he was the sixth loanee with only five permitted in the squad.
"Yes, and with hindsight it would have been better to involve him and leave Jon out,” he reflected. "That scenario might be taken out depending on how bad Jon is and he may be able to come into consideration.”
Town have had more than their fair share of ill fortune this season but Hurst says he’s not one to look for excuses or blame luck.
"It didn’t particularly look like we were going to score and we put Jon on to try and do something different,” he added.
"As I said, I wasn’t sure that that was helping them, but what I would say, even if it was a set play, even if you do find that right cross, he’s the one person you want in there.
"At 10 v 10, I’d still give the players credit, they were still the team that looked like they wanted to win it and were pressing forward, albeit a little bit more vulnerable to be broken on.
"But things go against you, there’s no getting away from that. One of the things we spoke about before the game was that there’s a message on the wall about not looking for excuses and I’m a massive believer in that.
"Things happen and if you look at the facts, they’re there in front of you, they happen, you have to try and do all you can to take that away from the scenario and therefore even if you have bad luck along the way, can you overcome it still?
"Today, in one sense, we got a clean sheet. But overall not what we wanted, we couldn’t do enough to get that victory.”