Bluebirds boss Mark Cooper has welcomed the return to fitness and form of key defender Matty Platt.

The centre-half has recently returned from the sidelines to reclaim his place in the Barrow rearguard.

Platt has contributed to clean sheets on the last two weekends in Barrow’s FA Cup win at Banbury and their 0-0 draw at Carlisle.

It sees the 24-year-old make an encouraging return having been out since August with a back problem.

Manager Cooper said the former Blackburn man’s comeback has been timely.

And he said he would handle Platt’s continued involvement carefully in order to maximise his pitch time for AFC.

“He’s been very good,” Cooper said.

“We have to be careful with him still, because he’s had a stress fracture of his back and we have to be careful with his load during the week at the moment.

“We train on 3G, so it’s difficult, and we don’t want to put him under too much stress.

“The most important thing is getting him on the pitch on Saturdays. We’ve done that over the last couple of weeks and he’s done really well.”

Platt lined up at the back alongside Joe Grayson and James Jones at Carlisle, with Mark Ellis on the bench.

Cooper must decide whether to stick with Connor Brown in the right wing-back role today after promoting the experienced player at Brunton Park in place of Remeao Hutton.

The manager is without striker Josh Gordon to suspension for the visit of Crawley.