Bakary blow may see Sorloth step up
ROY Hodgson suffered another injury headache yesterday when he learned that leading scorer Bakary Sako will be out for the rest of the season.
Sako, who has scored six times this season, has a fractured ankle and ligament damage and is now one of five Palace players who will not play again this term.
“It’s very serious and a massive blow for him, and for us,” Hodgson admitted as he prepared his side to face fellow strugglers Newcastle tomorrow.
Hodgson will have to include in his squad new signing Alexander Sorloth, the Norway striker who has not played since the end of November because of his country’s winter break, and joined the club from FC Midtjylland on deadline day.
And the £6.9million forward could find himself pressed into emergency service if Palace suffer any more injury setbacks, with Scott Dann, Jeffrey Schlupp, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Connor Wickham also missing until next season.
“Ideally he will be on the bench because he is obviously short of match practice and will need time to adjust, but you never know,” said Hodgson.
“He could be phased in if anything happens. We have to somehow replace Sako’s goals. When we signed Sorloth we thought we were adding to our strike force, instead all we have done is simply replaced. Our squad is even lighter now, but we have enough to see us through, because we can now add Alex to our striking options.”
Palace need points almost as badly as Newcastle do, and Hodgson said: “There is a lot on this match. We are very aware of the situation, and our next 12 games could all be classed as sixpointers.
“It’s going to be a dogfight, but we have given ourselves a chance.”
Newcastle are buoyed by new arrivals, and manager Rafa Benitez says he wants all his players to do his talking for him on the pitch for the rest of the season. The Toon boss clinched deals for Leicester striker Islam Slimani and Sparta Prague goalkeeper Martin Dubravka minutes before the transfer window shut on Wednesday. The pair join Chelsea winger Kenedy on loan at St James’ Park until the end of the season, with no permanent signings arriving despite talk of Newcastle smashing their transfer record last month. It is an open secret Benitez missed out on his top targets and required all his powers of persuasion to convince owner Mike Ashley that recruitment was essential to keep the Magpies up. But while he will not say whether he believes the club’s business in January was a success, he is now looking forward not backwards, with survival his only priority. “I don’t want to create a war,” he said. “I don’t need to do that. My job now is to make sure the players are concentrated on football, playing well and getting the points needed to stay up. “At the moment, the feeling is we are a little bit better than before. It is not a question of me being happy or not, what I need is the team to play well.” Slimani arrived at carrying a thigh injury but has an outside chance of making the bench at Palace. When he does play, Benitez is confident the Algerian will offer the cutting edge Newcastle lack. No one has scored more than four goals for his side and Benitez expects Slimani to beef up the attack. “He knows the league, he’s strong, can run behind defenders and do different things that we don’t have,” he said. “Of our strikers, one can run, one can win in the air and one can be strong. But this one can maybe do a bit of everything.”