Luke Williams has provided an update on Notts County's absentees as the new boss cranks up his pre-season preparations.
A handful of players were missing as the Magpies achieved a 2-1 win over Leicester City at the Premier League club's Seagrave training ground on Saturday afternoon.
Williams was quizzed on the players who were absent, revealing that Cedwyn Scott, Macauley Langstaff and Frank Vincent missed out through illness.
READ MORE: Brendan Rodgers gives Notts County seal of approval after win over Leicester City
“Both players [Scott and Langstaff] had a bit of a sickness but both guys were here today watching the team. They’re healthy and they’re ready to train again but it was something that we had to exclude them from the group in case there was a contamination, but both guys look really healthy and well today."
On Vincent, he explained: "He's another player that was ill. So we just have to make sure that we look after them. There’s a big load at the moment in training, some really high intense work as well so if you’re not actually well it can cause serious problems.”
Left-back Joel Taylor also missed out, with Williams revealing: “Joel is looking after his family, it’s nothing for us to be concerned about but he had to put that first."
Goals from Kairo Mitchell and Aden Baldwin turned the match around for County after Foxes winger Harvey Barnes opened the scoring with Williams full of praise for Mitchell, but insisted that there is more to come from Baldwin.
“I thought he [Mitchell] thoroughly deserved a goal for what he did out of possession with the ball,” he said. “Then to lead the line against a very athletic and competent back line, he done that well. And then he had a couple of good opportunities and ultimately got his goal and he deserved that.
“A bit rusty [Baldwin’s performance]. A few things that I don’t expect to see from Aden in the next couple of weeks but he’s not been able to train fully just because we had the precaution with him at the beginning of the week. Today he showed some of his qualities but there’s certainly more to come from Aden.”
Despite an impressive result, Williams refused to get carried away as the new manager continues to assess his squad and implement his ideas.
“It’s about the performance at the moment,” Williams added. “But hopefully the performance breeds the correct result as well so we have to make sure we are doing everything at the moment to prepare for the league campaign but there’s nothing better than winning.
“The opposition are of absolute top quality so, as a defensive practice, we had to be really, really organised and the players had to be completely committed to everything because if you give these guys any opportunity they’re going to take it and so [it was] a really positive defensive display.
“And then, we’re very early in our understanding of how we’re going to build up but we still managed to put some very good actions together.
“But still, at times, we’re making the wrong decision at crucial moments but we still have time to work on that so we take from this, to be able to come away without getting heavily beaten by this type of opposition, is important.”
County's next friendly is away at National League North club Alfreton Town this evening (Tuesday).
Williams added: “We need to be responsible for the players to help them all to get to the right place at the right time so we have to flip this around so you can expect to see two very, very similar teams but just in a different combination.”
READ NEXT:
