David Artell remains hopeful that defenders’ Olly Lancashire and Nicky Hunt are not too far away from returning from their slight injuries. Both are major doubts for the seasonal opener against Plymouth Argyle this weekend.

Summer signing Lancashire suffered a tear in his groin during pre-season and only featured against Altrincham in the warm-up games. Nicky Hunt injured his knee when stretching into a tackle against Wrexham last weekend and the experienced defender underwent a scan earlier this week.

Artell told crewealex.net: “Olly and Nicky are doing fine. They are progressing nicely.

“Olly has a tear in the muscle but he can still do his straight line running, so he can keep his fitness up. It will be more of a test for him when he has to twist and turn again but hopefully he will attempting that soon.

“We are not quite sure of the time frame on that.

On Hunt he said: “Nicky is progressing well but we have to keep checking on him and we are fully aware of the extent of the damage he has suffered yet. We remain hopeful that it won’t be too long with him either.”