STEVE KITTRICK: Boosted by good news

Matty Turnbull has been to see a specialist and they have told him that he could be back a lot earlier than we though.

Originally it looked as though he would be out until the end of the season, but that isn’t the case.

He has to rest his ankle ligament damage, but the operation to remove the floating bone can wait until pre-season.

He’ll be getting some treatment from our physio Chris Machen and we could have him back playing in two or three weeks.

Also, we should know the state of play with our Guinean winger Alhassane Keita later this week.

It has been a case of waiting for that green light on his papers and then he can play.

He hasn’t played any football since his ankle injury, so we’ll have to ease him back into it, but he could possibly get some game time on Saturday at home to Ossett Town.

That piece of paper that we need might even be in the post as we speak.

We are stil working hard on adding more players in a bid to strengthen our squad.

We need the right people though and finding them is very, very difficult.

The biggest problem we face is the distance that players have to travel, which costs us that little bit more in wages.

Having Matty and another defender in Dean Lisles closing in on fitness is massive for us though.

Dean and Alhassane will be like new signings for us when they come back in.

It hasn’t been the easiest of seasons when it comes to injuries, with Dean, Alhassane, Matty, Paul Robson and Liam Ormsby all picking up long-term problems.

We are still in there despite this, and with lads coming back in, it will give us a further boost as we head into an interesting few months.