Ross Embleton says it was illness as well as injury that forced Dan Happe off at half-time in Saturday’s draw against Macclesfield Town.

The defender was replaced by Josh Coulson at the break after receiving medical attention late in the first half.

Speaking after the game, Embleton said: “Dan has been suffering a little bit this week with a problem with his hip. As well, he was suffering with real sickness.

“We got him in at half-time and he just couldn’t go back out again. He looked like a ghost and it would have been foolish of us to try and push him any further.”

The boss, though, is hopeful that Happe will be able to return for tomorrow evening’s game at home to Mansfield Town.

He said: “He’s been excellent since we moved him back into centre-half after he had to fill in at left-back when we lost Joe [Widdowson]. I’m hopeful that the sickness bug is just a passing thing.”

Although Happe is in contention for the game, Embleton says that it will come too soon for the injured trio of Sam Ling, Jobi McAnuff and Louis Dennis.

He said: “Sam is very close. He’s really pushing himself now, did a lot of work yesterday. We hope that potentially he will train on Monday.

“I think it would be foolish to even contemplate that he may be involved in Tuesday’s game because with the time that he has been out we need to make sure that he’s fully prepared to be back in and he doesn’t suffer another set-back.

“Jobi is really pushing himself with the running but he’ll be nowhere near Tuesday, but the positives are coming out of every session that he does and he doesn’t feel any difficulty with that.

“Louis’ is a very stop-start one. It was his knee a couple of weeks ago. We got him back running and training and then he did a session in the morning with the other players that weren’t in the squad and suffered a problem with his hip, so I’ll be very surprised if he’s ready for Tuesday.”