Town defender out for last two
HUDDERSFIELD Town defender Tom Lees is set to miss the remaining two games of his side’s Championship relegation battle with a knee injury.
The defender sustained the setback in last weekend’s 4-0 defeat to Swansea City, with Andre Breitenreiter confirming at yesterday’s press conference that the centre-back will not be able to feature against either Birmingham City this afternoon or on the final day at Ipswich Town.
“Tom Lees, he has a MCL injury in his knee, so he is not available for the last two games,” the head coach said.
The 33-year-old picked up the injury in his attempts to prevent Swansea from scoring their second goal, with Town caught out by a long ball forward by Swans’ keeper Carl Rushworth, which Ronald went on to convert five minutes from time.
Breitenreiter expressed his frustration with some of his players, with the head coach believing that their lack of tracking back contributed to the centre-back sustaining his injury.
“All the three defenders have the longest way to run backwards, because after the set-piece and the goalkeeper plays a long ball and all the others stopped running,” the Terriers’ boss said.
“These three players, they ran for their lives (Lees, Matty Pearson and Michal Helik) and all the other players, they didn’t help.
“Then Tom Lees got his injury, because some players stopped running and this is unacceptable.
“I’ve never seen it before to be honest and this is not what a team should show.”
Breitenreiter opted to stick with the same line-up for the defeat to Swansea, after his side had come within a whisker of claiming a muchneeded victory at Bristol City the week before.
However, with the head coach having been left disappointed by last Saturday’s performance, the
German has vowed to make changes for this afternoon’s crucial clash at home to the Blues.
“I don’t want to say with the strongest mentality (those players will be selected), I try to find the right one (line-up) for this game,” the head coach said.
“It’s clear we need changes and we have one change for sure because of Tom Lees and then we wait up to Saturday [to decide on the others]. All the other players that maybe not start on Saturday can show when they come in that it was a bad decision, but I hope that then they are angry and they can show their best performance.”