GRAHAM Alexander says he will be “rolling around in joy” when City finally get their injured players back.

Aden Baldwin and Alex Pattison are now training fully again and Antoni Sarcevic is eyeing a return to the group tomorrow.

Alexander has learned not to put a timescale on their progress after recent setbacks.

But he is eager to see that extra competition back in the squad.

“I’m so looking forward to it because I’ve had really limited time to work with them as manager,” he said.

“Patto has been here the whole time but he’s not really been available.

“We lost him at the end of December after the Doncaster game. We’ve only had him for a tiny spell, the same as Aden and Sarce.

“All three of them have shown their quality in that short time.

“It excites you as a manager that you’ve got good players like that coming back. I’ll be rolling around in joy!

“I’ve had to be patient as well and I’m really looking forward to having difficult decisions to make.

“It’s where we were at the start of the season. You could see the strength of the squad and the bench with the results and I can’t wait to get back to that scenario.”

Pattison and Baldwin trained on Wednesday and Friday and City are pleased with their progress. But Alexander will not pressure them with any deadlines to play again.

“I stopped doing that a few months ago because we lost that many players. It was just too many.

“I just wanted to focus my attention on the players who were available if I could.

“Obviously we still keep tabs on the others and speaking to them. But I wouldn’t be doing my job properly if I wasn’t focused on the ones available.

“I’ve stopped expecting because of the false dawns with both of those two individuals especially.

“If we’d been banking on them coming back the last time they were supposed to, we would have been really disappointed because of how long it’s been extended.

“Patto has had a year and a half of it now, so I know how desperate he is to be involved and play football.

“Aden has come to a new club and wants to make a good impression of himself to everybody. He’s had three or four games.

“I think they’ve both got real desire to get up and running and play games again.

“It’s hard to be patient for those players when you’re missing so much football.

“Maybe we’ve got to manage them a little bit. But they are in good shape at the moment, so fingers crossed that’s them for the rest of the season.”

Alex Pattison has had big injury issues in his time with CityAlex Pattison has had big injury issues in his time with City (Image: Thomas Gadd)

Baldwin was the first major injury setback of the season when he tore his hamstring in City’s defeat at Grimsby at the end of August.

Pattison, whose first year at Valley Parade was riddled with injury, has been sidelined for the last two months.

Alexander added: “They are in good form. I spoke to them both on Friday about how they were getting on and they are really positive about it.

“It will be great to see them back out on the grass this week when we have the full days of proper training.

“We just want to take it steadily. We don’t want to almost bank on them being available next week.

“It’s really important that we don’t lose them again.

“Both of them have suffered two injuries in their spell out and we don’t want that to happen again.”