Junior Luamba ruled out of York City’s derby with Halifax Town.

 

 

 

 

 

YORK City will be without Junior Luamba when they face Yorkshire rivals FC Halifax Town on Saturday.

Adam Hinshelwood’s team will be seeking for a response from his York players following their 3-1 setback at leaders Barnet on Tuesday night, as they continue to recover after playing eight games in one month. City will continue their journey through this busy stretch of the National League season when they host Halifax at the LNER Community Stadium on Saturday (3pm), with Hinshelwood delivering the most recent team news. Luamba will be unavailable due to an illness that has recently affected Jeff King and Dan Batty at the York camp.

However, there was an encouraging update on Adam Crookes’ recuperation, as he participated in a complete training session on Thursday. “He [Luamba] would have been ready to start, but he’s been sick for a few days. “It’s absolutely one that we were looking forward to seeing, but he’s not going to be available this weekend. “Hopefully, he will be back on Tuesday night. “It’s absolutely worth looking at, not just physically but also emotionally. It’s exhausting to travel every Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, and Tuesday.

“There are a lot of players playing a lot of minutes, and we have to be careful because we have four more games in the next two weeks that are really tough fixtures.” “It’s a challenging run of games, but one that we’ll enjoy because we have a group of 20 players who are all ready, fit, and able, ready to go, and eager to get started. We need to make use of that. “Everyone is well; Junior simply had a minor illness. “Kingy [King] was a touch under the weather while we were away, and Batts [Batty] wasn’t feeling great too.

Adam Crookes has returned to training after recovering from a calf rupture. (Image: Tom Poole)”It’s been going through the camp, but Junior hasn’t been able to practice in the last few days, which is sad. “Other than that, we’ve got a clean bill of health.” Crookes has returned to training after missing the previous ten games due to a torn calf. The 27-year-old has made only four appearances this season, scoring once, and is not expected to be available for another two weeks. Hinshelwood added: “He returned to training and completed a full session for the first time yesterday, and he was back on his feet today.

“He’s still not in a position to train consecutive days, so we’re still looking at two weeks. “He needs to get a full week of training in first and then he’ll be available.”

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