Alan Devonshire admits he has never experienced a worse list of injuries to senior players in his time as Braintree Town manager as the one he faces ahead of their Vanarama Conference Premier trip to Aldershot Town tonight.

The Iron have a number of players sidelined by injury and several more have been playing through the pain barrier in recent weeks, but they have still been in good form and head to the Shots having won and kept clean sheets in four of their last five outings.

That run included a 2-0 win against Kidderminster on Saturday, however, their fitness problems have left Devonshire pondering the strength of the team he’ll be able to field.

He said: “We’ll have to put a side out or we’ll get fined.

“We have some boys from the academy who we’ve signed just for this type of occasion, but I’ve never known it like this in four seasons that I’ve been here.

“I’ve never had so many senior players out that I’ve had in the last three or four weeks.

“There are walking wounded in our dressing room and I don’t know what my side will be.

“I had someone behind me on Saturday saying ‘what are you doing bringing Simeon (Akinola) off?’ but he played when he shouldn’t have really.

“Simeon had a bad back and it was lucky that he playing, but he played for me.

“I thought if we could win against Kidderminster then we could put out a patched up side on Tuesday and deal with it.

“It was just important that we bounced back from Welling so I put out the strongest team I could.”

Jordan Cox is a doubt after going off with a knee injury in the win against Kidderminster and Devonshire said his striker and several others would face fitness tests ahead of the game at Aldershot.

He added: “You never know with Jordan, he might look as if he’s on his death bed and then he’ll say he’s OK.

“Alan Massey has been carrying an injury, Ryan Peters it was his first game back (against Kidderminster) and is he able to play on Tuesday?

“I don’t know and we’ll have to check before the game.”

To add to their injury concerns, skipper Kenny Davis will be suspended tonight after getting sent off for two bookings in Saturday’s win against Kidderminster.