Kevin Nolan explains what happened to Dean Campbell before Luton defeat, plus Joe Wormleighton latest
Kevin Nolan has explained what happened to Dean Campbell after the midfielder did not start against Luton Town despite initially being named on the team sheet.
The 24-year-old had played every minute of every league game after joining Cobblers in the summer and was again due to partner Terry Taylor in midfield for Saturday’s visit of the Hatters. However, Campbell was seen going down the tunnel shortly before kick-off and an announcement then confirmed he had been replaced in the team by Cameron McGeehan.
To make matters worse for Nolan, he then lost Joe Wormleighton, his only natural right-back, to injury after just 25 minutes, which meant Sam Hoskins moved into defence having started up front.
"I had to shuffle the pack again just before kick-off because we were going to start with Dean but he came out, and then Joe goes down quite early in the game,” explained Nolan. “It's not ideal.
"Dean just felt something in his calf in the warm up and we didn’t want it to get any worse. He’s played two 90s this week so we made the decision to get him out. It was more precautionary than anything else.
"Joe had an issue with his groin. He went in for a challenge and it was a bit of an awkward fall and someone went into him as well. He overstretched and I thought it should have been given as a foul for us but we didn’t get it. He was feeling it so we got him off because we didn’t want it to get worse. Hopefully it’s not bad and we’ll see him on the training pitch this week.”