Boro hoping to make emergency signing before Derby game

Last updated : 07 March 2011 By Northern Echo

The 22-year-old was forced off after 40 minutes in Saturday's 5-2 defeat to Reading at the Madejski Stadium when he made an unsuccessful diving attempt to keep out Ian Harte's curling free-kick.

Steele will undergo scans when the pain settles down, but indications after the game suggested he could be out for some time.

With Danny Coyne already sidelined through injury and expected to be out for another two to three weeks, Boro boss Tony Mowbray will try to draft in a replacement before tomorrow night's clash with Derby County at the Riverside.

Steele was replaced by 17-year-old Connor Ripley on Saturday, who was due to play for Boro's youth team in yesterday's FA Youth Cup quarter-final against Aston Villa.

It was a debut to forget for the teenager, who is the son of former Boro favourite Stuart, although he did make a couple of good saves and couldn't be blamed for any of the goals.

However, Mowbray feels it would be unfair to keep the youngster in the side while Steele and Coyne recover.

"We'll have to assess the injury to Jason," said the Boro boss. "At the moment we're saying it's probably a muscle tear in his side. We'll wait and see. He'll have a scan to see the extent of the damage but he's in a lot of pain and discomfort and we'll have to wait and see how long he's going to be.

"Connor is a confident boy. He's got all the attributes and I'm sure he's going to be a very good goalkeeper over the next few years and beyond, but in an ideal world we don't want to get him on the pitch yet.

"Danny Coyne is still a few weeks away so we'll have to address that in the next few days and see what we can do about the situation.

"Connor did fine when he came on, he made a few good saves. It could have been a lot worse than it was. He's a young boy with a big future but it's not ideal that he's getting game time at the moment.

"In an ideal world, Danny would be competing with Jason for the number one spot but it will do him (Ripley) no harm. He's a confident young boy. We lost a few goals but I don't point any finger of blame at him.

"We haven't got another goalkeeper at the club at the moment apart from the schoolboys who come in and help us every now and then, so we're going to have to bring someone in, we'll try and address that as quickly as we can."

Steele joins a worrying injury list at the Riverside, but Mowbray is hopeful Scott McDonald and Julio Arca will be fit to face Derby tomorrow.

McDonald missed Saturday's defeat due to illness, while the game came too early for Arca, despite the Argentinian making the trip to Berkshire with the squad.

A win for Scunthorpe on Saturday saw the gap between Boro and the relegation places close to just three points.

Tomorrow's game with Derby is a must-win for Mowbray's men and the Boro boss hopes his side can bounce back from Saturday's defeat with a positive performance.

"Scott's got an illness, he didn't train towards the end of last week," he said. "We didn't want anyone catching it and he wasn't well enough to travel with us. Hopefully he'll improve. We'll have to wait and see if he's going to be ready for Tuesday.

"Julio hasn't trained for a few days, he was always touch and go. He travelled down with us but we decided he wasn't ready so again, we'll assess that ahead of Tuesday.

"There are a lot of big games. We're all aware Tuesday was a big game and Saturday was a big game. The inconsistency we've had for a few months is still there and let's hope we can put that right and

find a good performance on Tuesday and get a good result, but there's no easy games.

"Derby will be very hard to beat and as I say we'll wait and see what type of game it is but hopefully we can get the three points."

Source: Northern Echo

Source: Northern Echo