CALLUM Ainley faces a scan to check on a hamstring problem as injuries and illness absences mount for Crewe ahead of tomorrow's visit to Plymouth.

The attacker, who saw the second part of last season blighted with a serious hamstring which needed surgery, came off at half-time in Saturday's 1-1 draw at Rotherham.

He joins loanee Ben Knight and striker Chris Long in the treatment room, while defender Terell Thomas and winger J'Neil Bennett were also missing at the New York Stadium through illness.

Dave Artell has not ruled out the latter duo from what promises to be another tough assignment for the Alex at Home Park (K.O 7.45pm).

"Callum has tweaked his hamstring and he is having a scan today. It's the same leg [as last season] but a different area," reported the Crewe boss.

"There's no point in speculating until we've found out the result of the scan.

"Are we stretched? I don't know. It's 11 versus 11 and we've got to go to Plymouth and put the same effort we put in on Saturday."

Thomas and Bennett pulled out of the Millers' clash at the 11th hour and Artell admitted: "The preparation wasn't ideal on Saturday, but the lads are professional footballers and they have to deal with adversity.

"We had a game plan that was deliberately different and I thought it went okay. We stayed in the game showing great resilience and got the reward late in the game."

Crewe grabbed a point from adversity thanks to Chris Porter's stoppage-time penalty.

Rotherham manager Paul Warne claimed his dominant side had bombarded the Alex box with crosses, but Artell was impressed at his side's resilience after a switch to three-at-the-back.

"Paul said afterwards it felt like a defeat for them and a win for us; obviously they had the lion's share of possession. According to Paul they had 36 crosses, but they only had three chances all game.

"But in the last 20 minutes we started playing ourselves and our passing got better. Getting a last minute equaliser you felt it mattered to the players against a team who have been promoted out of this division the last time they were in it."