Injury boost ahead of Cup showdown

The 23-year-old has been absent from the Latics squad since the 7-0 win at Oxford United.

And manager Cook is hoping to see the winger return to action at the Vitality Stadium.

He said: “I’m hoping Ryan will be re-joining the squad, he’s been out with a shoulder problem.”

Cook also revealed that long-term absentees Craig Morgan and Shaun MacDonald are nearing areturn to the first-team, whilst experienced defender Alex Bruce is the only fresh injury concern ahead of today’s game due to a back problem.

Cook said: “Apart from that, we’re good to go.”

MacDonald has been sat on the sidelines since his horror injury last April at Reading, and has been working hard in the gym in his comeback bid.

And former Latics captain Morgan was ruled out for a number of months in the summer after undergoing hip surgery.

The Wigan boss stated that he will be playing a full-strength side for the FA Cup third-round encounter, after his decision to make several changes for the replay in the last round against AFC Fylde almost came back to haunt him.

Cook says he will not have any temptations to rest first-team players like he has in other cup competitions to avoid a fixture pile-up. Cook said: “We’ve done that in competitions like The Checkatrade Trophy, which we got a little bit of criticism at the time, but the Checkatrade Trophy is still ongoing and teams will have to play in it, and play double leg semi-finals, and area semi-finals, whatever it may be.

“So for us, our priority was always the league, and the FA Cup, which people see from our team selections.”

He added: “I was disappointed in the last round with Fylde, we picked a team on the Tuesday night we believed that would get through, and it nearly backfired on us dramatically because Fylde stretched us all the way.

“(This time) we’ve not got a mid-week game, it’s Saturday to Saturday, so there is no sort of resting players or anything like that from us.”