Tom Loizou reflects on Saturday’s 2-1 win at Bury Town, the standard of refereeing and Haringey’s injury problems ahead of facing Heybridge Swifts

Haringey Borough are sweating on the fitness of three key players ahead of their Bostik North play-off semi-final with Heybridge Swifts on Wednesday.

Rakim Richards, Valery Pajetet and Anthony McDonald all suffered injuries at the weekend at Bury Town.

It failed to stop Borough securing a 2-1 win away at the Ram Meadow outfit with Lauren Luke and Ralston Gabriel finding the net.

The Coles Park club couldn’t clinch automatic promotion despite the victory though and ended up in fourth which sets up a match with Swifts tomorrow.

But boss Loizou is waiting on the availability of three players, he said: “In the warm-up we lost Rakim, then 20 minutes into the game we lost Valery our goalkeeper and five minutes later Anthony split his head open after getting a kick to the head.

“It is an uphill struggle anyway playing against a team who think it is a cup final and then officials who shouldn’t be referring at that level, so when it is like that what can you do?

“Fortunately we’ve had enough experience at this level to know what we have got to overcome and although it is not fair, we have to deal with it.

“I don’t like to complain about referees, but there has got to be some sort of different system when it comes to grading these referees.”

Loizou was left frustrated with a number of decisions during Saturday’s win including when Gabriel played Andre McCollin through and he was flagged offside when though he was on.

There was also an incident where a Haringey throw got a touch before finding the net, but the goal was ruled out.

Nevertheless, the experienced manager praised his team for getting the job done and finishing the regular season with an eighth straight success.

“All credit to the players. They have overcome this and they understand how we get treated and hopefully we get some strong officials on Wednesday,” said Loizou.

Haringey’s boss will also hope to have Richards, Pajetet and McDonald available with all three playing a crucial role in their success this season.

McDonald was recently named Supporters’ Player of the Season while the displays of Pajetet in goal have earned him rave reviews throughout the campaign.

Loizou added: “Valery has a chance for Wednesday, Anthony has a chance and so has Rakim. Hopefully they are all available.

“Rakim has had a troublesome Achilles and Valery has been very ill over the last two to three weeks and has probably been drained of all his body fluids.

“We weren’t sure if Valery’s injury was a pulled muscle or cramp. We are hoping it is cramp because of the lack of natural fluid in the body and Anthony got a split at the back of his head, so we took him off as a precaution as well.”

After various problems earlier in the season with injuries, Haringey will hope to have luck on that front this week when they entertain Heybridge for what is currently their biggest match of the campaign.