Barrow boss Mark Cooper will be warning against any form of complacency against League Two’s current poorest team.
Scunthorpe United visit the Dunes Hotel Stadium in deep trouble – but on the back of an improved performance, albeit in defeat.
Cooper could have more of his injured players back up for selection but was playing his cards close to his chest.
Connor Brown (groin), Jamie Devitt (thigh), Luke James (foot), Matt Platt (back) and Dimitri Sea (hamstring) are all making progress and Cooper may think about involving at least one of them at some stage tonight.
Tom Beadling (knee), Mike Jones (Achilles) and Kgosi Ntlhe (knee) remain a little further away from any possible return.
Opposite number Neil Cox is calling on his players to put in the same effort and determination as they did against the League leaders Forest Green on Saturday when they lost 2-0.
The turning point hinged on a controversial refereeing decision in a game which didn’t look like two teams at the opposite ends of the table competing against each other.
Talking to the iFollow Iron website Cox said: “If I’m honest, I’m more raging now that I’ve looked back at the game and the decisions that went against us.
“I’ve had a report sent in to Mike (Jones, Head of Refereeing at the EFL) about seven or eight big decisions that really went against us. We’re not going to get anything back from it, but I was just really disappointed with how he lost control of the game.
“There was nothing in the game. Before the penalty you wouldn’t have known which team was top and which team was bottom, but we’ve lost the game because of a really bad decision, I believe.
“The two we didn’t get were more certain penalties than the one we had given against us.”
The defeat wasn’t the only fall-out from the game at the weekend, with a number of injuries picked up as a result of poor challenges, some of which went unpunished.
One was skipper Harry Davis, who was withdrawn in the first half due to a head wound, while left-back Mason O’Malley is also waiting to hear about the seriousness of his injury after he was substituted in the second half.
“Harry Davis has had 40-odd stitches in a head wound, which is never a good thing,” he continued.
“We didn’t get a free-kick and we had to kick the ball out of play. He’s going to be missing.
“Mase (Mason O’Malley) has got a bad leg injury. We won’t know how bad it is until he sees a specialist. (George) Tafty was lucky enough to get away with the tackle on him, as he saw it coming, but that could have been a really bad one. There were a couple of naughty tackles in there and some bad luck for us.
“There a couple of other knocks and a couple of illnesses. Ross (Millen) has trained but is still ill. We’ve got a couple with illnesses, so we have to be careful with them. We’re down to the bare bones, but there were smiles on the faces onMonday morning, we’ve had a really good session, and we look forward to the challenge.”
Cox believes the team can take a lot of positives from the week-end into the game at Barrow.
“We got beaten 2-0, but we got clapped off, I think that’s a good sign,” he said.
“We were really poor the week before, but I think the supporters could see the effort and desire to try and get a result. When the opposition goalkeeper gets man of the match, it’s always a painful one, but it shows we put them under pressure.”
