AARON Lloyd is a doubt for Saturday’s Causeway United’s Baker Joiner Midland Alliance game at home to Shepshed.

The striker suffered a suspected cracked rib in Tuesday night’s 3-0 Birmingham Senior Cup defeat at Skrill Conference North side Leamington after goals from Will Green, Rick Johnson and Jake Heath.

Boss Andy Mole said: “We’ll have to wait and see with Aaron, he was struggling to breathe when he came off.”

Mole is keen for his side to bounce back after a difficult week saw them lose controversially 3-1 at home to Loughborough University.

The hosts had youngster Sam Beasley sent off for alleged used of the elbow but still led through a Jake Pearlman goal in the first-half.

But a disputed late penalty levelled up the game and they eventually ran out of steam.

“The sending off was harsh,” said Mole. “The referee originally pulled the game back for a free-kick to us because Sam had been tripped twice but managed to ride the tackles but then sent Sam off on his assistant’s say so. They both jumped for the ball and it was more of a momentum thing but afterwards the referee said he hadn’t seen it.

“I don’t like to get on referee's’s backs but he didn’t have a good game and made three major mistakes. The penalty he played advantage and they had two shots on goal before he pulled it back and then the third goal was offside.

“It’s difficult to say we were unlucky not to win but the last 20 minutes really told on us. We’d played well first-half and had chances early in the second to go further ahead.

“But that’s how it goes sometimes and we’ll have to dust ourselves off ready for Shepshed.

“It’s been a tough two games for us. We worked really hard at Leamington closing them down but the levels between us showed - but hopefully the lads will be sharper and fitter for the experience come Saturday. It was a good learning curve for some of the younger lads to see the levels you have to achieve in football if you want to move on.”