James Shea avoided a broken nose after being stretchered off in AFC Wimbledon's 2-0 defeat to Shrewsbury .
The goalkeeper picked up a knock when he went to claim a cross and, after a long delay, was replaced by 20-year-old Joe McDonnell.
The young stopper was beaten twice by Liam Lawrence and Scott Vernon either side of half-time but gave a creditable performance on debut.
Ardley said: “Shea seems good now. He was a bit groggy at first, but fingers-crossed he will be fine. We will assess him during the week and we will not take any risks.
“He took a whack and blood was coming out of his nose, but he came around pretty quickly and he should be fine for next week.”
The Dons boss was pleased with the effort his side put in at the league leaders but admitted they lacked potency in the final third.
He added; “ We should not be too downhearted because we played good stuff at times, but lacked that bit of quality.
“We did not start particularly well, but then I thought we grew into the game and had some good moments.
“We got balls behind their midfield and got bodies forward, but we just chose the wrong options in promising positions.
“They are a very good team with a lot of quality players. We played with two forwards and one in behind so we did go for it.
“, a few key moments lost it for us. You can write off the last 15 minutes because we had committed a lot of players forward by then.
“The first goal came just before half-time and that was a blow. We then switched off from a corner for the second goal and when you have to chase the game against a good team then it’s a lot harder.
“Apart from those moments I thought we defended resiliently and had a good go at it for 75 minutes.”
