Fresh injury update on Grant Ward, Keshi Anderson, Sullay Kaikai and Gary Madine ahead of Blackpool's crunch game against Northampton

Neil Critchley says it’s still too early for Grant Ward and Sullay Kaikai to be ruled out of Blackpool’s trip to Northampton Town this weekend.

The pair hobbled off during Tuesday night’s 1-0 win against Sunderland thanks to Kaikai’s second-half thunderbolt.

The forward felt his hamstring, while Ward’s knock was initially believed to be to his Achilles - but Critchley has revealed it’s actually his calf which was troubling him.

Speaking this morning ahead of Saturday’s game at Sixfields, Critchley said: “We’re still waiting on how Wardy and Sullay are after the game on Tuesday night. The players are reporting back for training this afternoon.

“Obviously when they both come off towards the end there’s an obvious issue and both have got some kind of issue. The severity of those issues, we’ll have to wait and find out more about them today.

“Wardy, it was his calf. For Sullay, it was his hamstring, both muscular injuries, so we’ll have to be careful with both. But we won’t be ruling them out for the weekend at this moment in time.

“Other than that, there’s nothing else to report.”

Missing both Ward and Kaikai would be another big blow for the Seasiders, who are already without Daniel Gretarsson, Matty Virtue, Keshi Anderson, CJ Hamilton and Gary Madine through injury.

Anderson and Madine are the two closest to making a return, while Elliot Embleton will also return to contention after being ineligible to face his parent club Sunderland in midweek.

“Keshi has joined back in training, so he’ll train again today,” Critchley added.

“But then we have to decide at what point is he ready to be involved again in a first-team squad because he’s been out for such a long period of time.

“We’ll have to think about the games, how long within those games and the timeframe as well. It’s not like we can ease him back in knowing we’ve got six weeks of the season left, because we haven’t.

“We’ll look at him over the next few days and have a discussion as a staff and decide when we think it’s appropriate, safe and when he feels ready to be involved in the squad.

“Gary is on the grass, he’s running and he’s doing some ball work, so we shall start to step that up because this week has been his first involvement for a few weeks as well.

“We will start to intensify the type of work he’s doing and hopefully he can progress a little but further.”

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