GRAHAM Alexander is trying not to get his hopes up as a trio of City casualties near their return.

Aden Baldwin, Antoni Sarcevic and Alex Pattison are all getting close to rejoining training again.

The three long-term absentees could be back working with the squad again in just over a week.

But given City’s injuries woes this season, Alexander is determined to keep a lid on his expectation.

“They are on the training pitch but with the medical team,” said the City boss this afternoon. “We’re hopefully looking at the next 10 days to reintroduce a couple of them.

“If they keep going with how they’ve progressed in the last 14 days, that should be the scenario.

“We’re not pre-empting anything because we’ve had a couple of setbacks with a couple of them already. We don’t want that to happen again and hopefully that won’t be the case.

“Ciaran Kelly is out on the grass but he’s going to be a little bit longer because of the severity of his injury.

“Those three are the main ones that are the next introductions back into training.”

Summer recruits Baldwin and Sarcevic have been out since the opening month of the season. Pattison last played against Harrogate at the end of September.

Alexander added: “I’ve learned to switch off from it, not to get my hopes up and have great expectations that we have them available on any given day.

“I don’t want to plan for them to be available here and it gets set back a week or something like that.

“At the moment, I’m trying to keep an open mind and focusing on the ones that are playing for us right now.

“When we do have them back, it will make the squad more competitive.

“They are in good form mentally. I speak to them every day, so it’s just about them progressing as expected.”

Corry Evans was back with the squad today after missing the Fleetwood defeat.

“He missed a week of training so we’ll see how he is tomorrow,” said Alexander. “Fingers crossed, he’s available to us.”