Dan Batty injury could be serious fears Fleetwood boss Stephen Crainey

The 24-year-old was withdrawn with an ankle injury after 70 minutes of Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Cheltenham Town.

It has been a stop-start campaign for the Yorkshireman, who missed more than five weeks of action early in the season with what then manager Simon Grayson described as “illness and back spasms”.

Ironically, that period of absence followed an appearance against Cheltenham as a substitute in Town’s 3-2 Highbury win in August.

Batty was sent off in the 5-1 defeat at Accrington Stanley at the start of December and didn’t appear in the rest of that month’s fixtures.

But he has since re-established himself as a regular starter, making 26 appearances this season and scoring in the home draw with MK Dons.

Head coach Crainey said of his latest setback: “Dan’s ankle is a wee bit swollen so we’ll assess that in the next couple of days.

“Hopefully it isn’t as bad as it looks but it could be a bad one for Dan.”

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