Evans turned his ankle when he put his foot into a hole in the Millennium Stadium playing surface as the players started their pre-match preparations, and despite concerns as he limped off the pitch, Evans has recovered sufficiently to stay with the squad for today's clash with Russia in Moscow.

"Martin spoke to him and he said he was going to be okay," said Little. "We are a bit relieved about that because we need him in one piece ahead of the weekend.

"Obviously Wales have one more match before he comes back to us and at present he is fine. He said that the injury from Saturday is ok and he can play with that.

"We will need to assess him when we get him back, but he isn't expected back until probably Friday, Thursday afternoon at the very earliest.

"We need to wait until after the Russia match, because anything can happen in that, and then we will take it from there and address the state of play.

"Steve is a big character for us, and he would want to play on Saturday regardless, he has proven to us that he was one of the right ones to keep over the Summer."

When asked about the problems international call-ups cause in the middle of a busy period of league fixtures, Little admitted that he would never stand in the way of any of his players representing their country.

"We don't take international events away from anyone," he insisted. "Nobody at the club would dream of stopping him or anyone else from going away with their country, especially given what a fantastic achievement it is for someone to be picked to play at our level.

"He is representing the club at international level and whether he plays or not, it is a fantastic thing to happen to anybody."

Two players who won't make it for Saturday are Nat Brown and Kyle Critchell.

"Nat is more likely to be fit for a week on Saturday," said Little.

"We check each injured player everyday and although injuries improve in spurts and quiet periods, we treat him with caution after what happened last time we brought him back.

"As we have said, anything can happen and he could have a spurt where it gets better quickly, but at the moment he may miss the game but, Kyle is progressing ok.

"It is slow process after the first couple of weeks with the type of injury he had, but at the time of the injury we thought it would be four to six weeks and anything around then is fantastic.

"You never really know how long an injury like his will take but it is coming along ok."

Wrexham's friendly at Altrincham was ended prematurely by floodlight failure at Moss Lane last night.

In the Wrexham line-up was Conall Murtagh for his first run out of the season and he played alongside new signing Tom Taylor in midfield.

Ask Brian

If you have a question for Brian Little email it to digitalnews@nwn.co.uk and we'll ask as many as we can during our next video interview with the Reds boss this Thursday.