O’NEILL FORCED TO ASSESS HIS OPTIONS AFTER INJURIES HIT POTTERS SQUAD
MICHAEL O’neill is counting his walking wounded as Stoke City return from the international break with at least 10 players nursing injuries.
Harry Souttar and Jack Clarke are doubts for tomorrow’s trip to Bristol City, but Nathan Collins, Joe Allen, Tashan Oakley-boothe and Tyrese Campbell are out for pretty much the rest of the season.
Allen has suffered a calf and hamstring injury that means he is fighting for fitness ahead of the European Championships.
O’neill said: “Joe has got a calf and a hamstring injury, both either side of the knee. It’s on the opposite side to where he had his Achilles injury and repair and it’s probably just a combination of a little bit of heavy loading and unfortunately the injury is a little bit more serious than we thought at first.
“He came out of the Wales game early after six minutes so we hoped that meant he hadn’t done too much damage.
“But with scans and being assessed medically, unfortunately the injury is more serious than we thought and it’s not something he’s going to be back in the next couple of weeks from.”
He added: “I think it’s touch and go whether we will get him back before the end of the season. We would obviously like that to be the case.
“Joe obviously has the target of playing in the finals for Wales in the summer, which is a massive thing for him, and we want him to get that opportunity as well.
“We’ve just got to manage him a little bit and see how his progress develops between now and the end of the season.
“Unfortunately a consequence of a long-term injury is that you’re a little bit more susceptible to pick up injuries in other places as well.”
Morgan Fox, Jordan Cousins and Sam Clucas are all still in the treatment room. James Mcclean (foot) was assessed yesterday after returning from unexpected action on international duty. Jordan Thompson is due to return today.
January signing Alfie Doughty has been stepping up his training over the last few days as he recovers from a hamstring injury he sustained at Charlton in October.
“When I look at the list, Collins, Allen, Campbell and Oakley-boothe are essentially going to struggle to play very much part in the rest of the season to be honest,” said O’neill.
“Fox, we hope, will be back in the next two to three weeks.
“Cousins and Clucas we hope to have back in the next possibly week. Forrester is a young player and we don’t fully know the extent of his injury.
“Clarke and Souttar will hopefully come through training tomorrow and have a chance of being involved on Friday but they are both touch and go.”
O’neill called on the in-form under-23s to join training this morning and there could be a couple of fresh faces on the bench at Ashton Gate.
He said: “We had 18 training today, bringing up five or six or the 23s. (Christian) Norton, (Eddie) Jones, (Lewis) Macari, (Dan) Malone, Connor Taylor…
“We had 13 fit senior players and then we still had players on international duty and players returning like James who isn’t in a situation where he can train today. Jordan won’t be back until tomorrow.
“It was fine. Some of the lads were away but Rhys (Norrington-davies) didn’t play in the game last night so he could train today. Training was good. It’s been really good this week – and the weather helps.”
It was put to O’neill that, given Stoke’s bad luck with injuries this season, he might have tried to wrap his fit players in cotton wool during the international break.
He said: “We kind of did! We can’t just give them two weeks off, which is the only other thing you can do. We gave them two days at the start of the week, they trained three days last week and got the weekend, now they’re in a four day lead in.
“If you break it down in terms of days they got 50 per cent off and that signifies cotton wool for me.”