NEIL ROBERTS believes the Dragons can put right Tuesday’s last-gasp defeat to Stockport County by beating Wycombe in Saturday’s Racecourse clash.

Wrexham’s club captain played his first full game for the reserves in last night’s mini-derby against Chester, following a recurrence of the ankle injury he suffered last August.

Steve Evans could also return to the squad for the Wycombe clash, while the defender’s fellow Wales international Mark Jones is expected back in training next week after nearly two months out with a knee injury.

However it will be on-loan midfielder Paul Mitchell’s last game as he has been recalled by parent club MK Dons, who are suffering an injury crisis.

Dons have the right to call Mitchell back after 28 days and that date falls on February 9.

But as Roberts nears a return to first-team action, the striker said the Dragons would bounce back from Tuesday’s disappointing result when they were sunk by a last-minute header from County substitute Liam Dickinson.

“Overall I thought we deserved the three points,” said the 28-year-old. “But that’s the way things are going at the moment – they scored what was a very lucky goal right at the death.

“It’s something that we’ve got to bounce back from on Saturday.”

He said the Dragons needed to start taking their chances throughout the team, and had to cut out costly mistakes at the back.

“I know we can do it – it’s just a matter of when we do get chances, we’ve got to start taking them,” he added. “It’s not just the strikers, it’s all over the pitch. When we’re playing well we need to score and get the other teams on the back foot rather than us constantly defending.

“On Tuesday if we’d have scored the early chances we’d have gone on to win the game comfortably. The longer it stays 0-0 the more tense we get, so we need to get scoring and get some wins under our belt.”

Tuesday’s game saw loan signings Robbie Garrett and Cherno Samba make their Wrexham debuts, with Stoke City youngster playing 90 minutes in the centre of midfield and Plymouth striker Samba replacing Marc Williams with 25 minutes left.

Roberts said of the pair: “They’ve only trained one day with us so far, but I thought Robbie did well against Stockport. He’s a young lad and he’s got great energy. Obviously with Cherno Samba he didn’t get long enough for me to see much of him, but he gives us something different up front.

"He started off at Millwall when he was about 17 and Liverpool tried to sign him, and he’s played in La Liga with Cadiz, so he’s got some good experience.”

Wrexham go into Saturday’s game still seeking their first win under Brian Carey after losing 2-1 at Swindon and drawing 1-1 at home to Hartlepool and away at Darlington before the Stockport defeat. However, Roberts said things were moving in the right direction under the new manager.

He added: “It’s been difficult for Brian because he’s been kind of thrown in at the deep end, but from our performances alone I think we can see a definite change in the lads’ confidence. In the first game against Swindon, if you take away the result we did well and we were unlucky not to get something out of the game.

“We’ve conceded bad goals – the one on Tuesday was a really bad goal to concede, which is maybe sloppy on our part. But morale is good in the camp, everybody’s pulling in the same direction and we just need to get some wins under our belt. I think Brian’s doing a great job all things considered, and we’re going in the right direction.”

Club physio Mel Pejic said he was hopeful Roberts could feature on Saturday following last night’s match. And he believes Jones and fellow knee injury casualty Matt Crowell will be back in training next week.

Evans returns to training today and will be involved on Saturday if he suffers no reaction to his knee injury before the match – which would enable Danny Williams to move back into midfield if required.

Striker Juan Ugarte is continuing his rehab on a hamstring injury.