ADAM CROOKES has torn his calf – meaning that Adam Hinshelwood is exploring the possibility of adding to his York City squad.

A new setback for Crookes means that the defender is likely to be out of action for the next few weeks, adding to York’s injury list of Ryan Fallowfield, whilst Darragh O’Connor left the club for a loan move to Falkirk last week.

As a result of a sudden lack of availability in City’s backline, Hinshelwood is hopeful of bringing in a left-sided defender to the club, whilst also hoping to find a viable replacement for the hole left in the forward areas by David Ajiboye and Luca Thomas.

“Crookesy has torn his calf in the last couple of days,” Hinshelwood confirmed in Friday’s press conference.

“It’s a massive blow, we’re just training really well and having that left-footer at the heart of the defence really gives us some balance.

“It’s a real blow for him and us, and it’s going to be a couple of weeks I think for Crookesy.

“It’s a disappointing one, we’ve sent Darragh out to get some games out on loan whilst having Ryan and Adam available, and it’s good that Cam John’s back.

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“Ricky [Aguiar] has done well whilst he’s filled in at left-back, we’ve obviously got Jeff King as well who has trained really well this week.

“In the last couple of weeks we have seen a real better intensity from him, so he’s definitely pushing closer to getting some minutes, which is good.

“Potentially, we’ll be looking at that left side defender.

“Even if it’s just for a month to see us through, it will be an area that we will be looking at, yes.

“Probably not in time for tomorrow [match vs Sutton United], but we’ll look at it hopefully and won’t rule it out for being available tomorrow, but it might be too soon.

“We only got the extent of Crookesy’s damage relayed to us this morning, so hopefully by the time Oldham comes around on Tuesday, we will have another defender added to the ranks.”

Hinshelwood believes that City’s current high position in the National League will provide an incentive to potential loan additions, with the boss admitting that it’s a more attractive selling point compared to last season, where York struggled for the majority of the campaign, only to survive on the final day.

He also explained what other positions the club are hoping to recruit in, whilst being wary not to disrupt the togetherness that the squad has assembled this season.

“When you’re trying to sell the club if you’d like, and can say that you’re pushing for the Championship and a promotion, the players are much more likely to want to come and be a part of that, than they would be if we were in a relegation dogfight.

“We’re a much better proposition and it’ s the end of the table that we want to be at as a club, it’s a lot easier when you’re speaking to players for sure.

“We’ll look at it and sit down with Tony [McMahon, Director of Football] and Matt [Uggla, co-chairman] and see where we can bring players in, but I think that we’ll need a couple just for the month, just to turn us over.

“It’s definitely an area, or a couple of areas, that we need.

“With that, I’m still really happy with what we have got available, we’ve got a real good squad and a real good togetherness in the squad as well.

Injuries to Ryan Fallowfield and Adam Crookes means that York City are exploring the loan market. (Image: Tom Poole) “I think that we’ve gone from 22 outfield players to having 18, and that does bring the group closer together so we really want to focus on that as well.

“Probably in the midfield sort of area, we’ve got Hunty [Alex Hunt], Marv [Armstrong], Billy Chadwick, Ricky can play there.

“An attacking midfielder, we lost Luca and David Ajiboye so an attacking wide player and a left-sided defender would be the two areas that we’d try and hopefully strengthen in the next couple of weeks.”

Hinshelwood also provided the latest on Ryan Fallowfield, who is back jogging, and George Sykes-Kenworthy, who underwent surgery prior to Christmas and is now in the middle of a long road to recovery.

“Obviously Ryan Fallowfield has his hamstring.

“He’s good, it’s weird now with hamstrings, a week or so into it you can get back running.

“It’s weird to see him doing some light jogging already, because for me if they jog, then the next thing after that is they can sprint.

“If they can sprint, they can play surely!

“At this early stage he’s just running, which is a bit weird, but he’s working hard and he’s probably got about three or four weeks from when the injury happened so he’s got a good two or three weeks left.

“He’s working hard to make sure he comes back in good nick when he’s available.

“He [Sykes-Kenworthy] had it just before Christmas, so he’s in the boot recovering.

“He’ll still be a couple of months away before he can feature, which is a blow for George.

“We tried to do all that we could to prevent him from having the surgery, but it got to a stage where it wasn’t progressing and he needed to have it operated on.

“That’s all done now, so the recovery starts for George from now and again, Sam will be pushing him along and making sure he’s ready.”