City were today assessing the damage to their promotion push after losing Omar Daley and Rhys Evans to injury.

Last night’s goalless draw with Darlington at Valley Parade came at a big cost for Stuart McCall’s side.

Daley damaged knee ligaments and Evans strained his thigh, meaning rookie keeper Jon McLaughlin is in line to make his senior debut at Barnet on Saturday.

Daley was stretchered off after just 20 minutes but Evans played on through the pain because there was no back-up stopper on the bench, pulling off a crucial save from former Huddersfield hitman Pawel Abbott late on.

Stuart McCall admitted: “It was a massive point for us taking everything into consideration. We lost Omar early on, Clarkey (Matt Clarke) got a bang early on, Rhys did his thigh and Luke O’Brien was still feeling a bit of tonsillitis.

“It wasn’t a great game but it was a great effort. Because of the circumstances, it’s a terrific result.

“There was nothing in it. It wasn’t a great spectacle but we’d said before the game that it would be a really hard match.

“But we’re on a decent run and we’ll take positives from this game. We’ll rest up now and look forward to hopefully getting the three points from Barnet.”

In a tight game of few chances, City had the best of them in the first half. Peter Thorne struck the bar from close range and Michael Boulding was denied when put clean through.

But Darlington, playing their first game since January, grew more dangerous as the game wore on and threatened towards the end with Abbott, Danny Carlton and Liam Hatch all going close.

McCall added: “I expected Darlington to get stronger. They threw the big boy Hatch on and Abbott up top is probably the best in the division with everything he does as centre forward.

“They might have been a bit rusty but Darlington teams are always hungry.

“But we showed some magnificent defending and Rhys has only had one save to make, which was a terrific one.”

Daley was going for a scan today but he is set to be sidelined for several weeks. Evans’ thigh injury also looks a bad one and could rule him out of City’s plans for a while.

McCall has faith in McLaughlin, the keeper he plucked from non-league Harrogate last summer. He will play in a private reserve game at Doncaster this afternoon – a match that will also see a welcome return for Chris Brandon.

McCall has ruled out delving into the loan market for a stop-gap replacement for Evans.

He said: “We brought Jonny in as a back-up for Rhys and it might be time to give him a chance. We’ve seen him in training and in the reserves and he’s done nothing wrong.”