GRAHAM Alexander says there is nothing to worry about with Callum Johnson’s delayed start to pre-season.
Johnson is among four players yet to join in with full-scale training.
Brad Halliday, fellow new recruit Aden Baldwin and Calum Kavanagh are also waiting for the all-clear to get involved.
But Johnson’s absence from the early work has caused concern among fans as he comes off an injury-hit campaign.
The defender missed nearly four months of Mansfield’s promotion campaign with a serious hamstring injury, restricting him to 17 appearances.
Johnson is likely to start back after the other three but Alexander insists it is a minor issue.
“Brad, Aden and potentially Calum Kavanagh are pencilled in for Monday or Tuesday next week,” said the City boss. “We want to stick to that.
“We want to make sure we get three to four weeks of pre-season into them.
“If that’s what it is, we’ll be happy with that. I don’t want to take unnecessary risks and lose players for the whole of pre-season. That would be a negative situation completely.
“Callum Johnson will be a week after them.
“There was just something he picked up on his off-season running before we started training.
“It was just a niggle. He wanted to ignore it because obviously he was desperate to prove his fitness.
“When he ran on it again, he maybe should just have taken a step back.
“But I get it as a player who’s missed a lot of football. You’re just desperate to be fit and be back in it.
“It’s nothing serious. We’ve had it scanned and it’s not a bad one at all.
“We only scanned him because of his issues before. It’s just getting to know the player better physically.
Aden Baldwin should get the all-clear from Monday (Image: Thomas Gadd)
“He’s slightly behind but Aden and Brad should be back in together at the same time and Calum following them.”
Johnson was signed on an initial one-year deal, although there is likely to be a club option on top of that.
There could also be a trigger clause included to extend the deal automatically if he plays a certain number of games.
All four are in Alexander’s plans for City’s training camp in Austria.
“They will all be there. We expect two of them to be in training before that.
“If it was long term or six or seven weeks out, we probably wouldn’t take them because we need them for training purposes and the game.
“But we fully expect them to be involved, so fingers crossed that’s the case.”
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