ANDY MANGAN is fit to face Altrincham at The Racecourse tonight (7.45pm) – despite fearing his season might have come to a premature end on Saturday.
Mangan appeared to twist his knee in the closing seconds of the 1-1 draw against Ebbsfleet United and after receiving treatment from physio Ritson Lloyd he was stretchered off the pitch.
Although the 23-year-old was later able to hobble away from the stadium, manager Dean Saunders was worried that his January transfer window signing faced a lengthy spell on the sidelines.
But after declaring himself fit for yesterday’s training session, Mangan will take his place in the side against Altrincham.
“I trained yesterday and I feel fine,” said Mangan. “I thought it was serious at the time, and it does not look nice on the video.
“But the pitch being in the condition it was probably saved me. Even though my knee gave way my foot has gone into the ground so that helped. I did a lot of squats with the Forest Green physio when I was banned to maybe that helped.
“Ritson and their physio were there straight away, as well as the gaffer. I wanted to walk off but Ritson said to go on the stretcher as a precaution.
“Even Ritson thought it was bad but when I stood up I felt okay. And at about 4am the next morning I took the strapping off and my knee clicked, everything fell into place.
“I would have been devastated if it had been a bad injury but happy days, it wasn’t.”
Mangan had given Wrexham a 15th minute lead against Ebbsfleet, scoring his third goal in ten games since joining from Forest Green for an undisclosed fee.
Wrexham created numerous chances to extend their lead but failed to kill the game off and had to settle for a disappointing draw as Ebbsfleet grabbed a second half equaliser.
And Mangan admits he was guilty of failing to take scoring opportunities that came his way: “I was pleased to score but I still missed some chances,” he said. “Two didn’t go in and on another day I would have had a hat-trick.
“I was still glad to get one goal but devastated we did not win. As a striker you want to score but we need wins.
“I thought we played well, the first half was really good. We should have put them to bed and then if it is 3-0 or 4-0 and you concede, it doesn’t matter.
“The attacking players need to take responsibility for that, we are in the team to score.
“We have just got to go again and try and score goals against Altrincham.”
Mangan remains confident he will score a healthy amount of goals for Wrexham and intends to take his tally into double figures before the end of the season if he plays in all Wrexham’s remaining games.
“It should be more than three goals,” said Mangan. “But strikers miss chances.
“As I have said, I believe I will score a lot of goals for Wrexham.
“I will try and be one goal in two games by the end of the season. If I can get ten or more in the 24 games I think I can play this season, I think it will be a success personally.
“If I do that we will be winning games and see where that takes us.
“I would be happy with that record and then come back firing on all cylinders next season, and I would have had a pre-season too. But I will still try to do my best this season.”