Another injury blow for Sanches
SWANSEA City manager Carlos Carvalhal expects Renato Sanches to miss the Premier League clash with Arsenal after the midfielder suffered his latest injury setback at Notts County.
The Swans will require a replay against Kevin Nolan’s men after Jon Stead’s sixth. goal in as many games cancelled out Luciano Narsingh’s effort aty Meadow Lane.
Sanches was making his first appearance since suffering a hamstring injury in the third-round clash with Wolves, but he only lasted 32 minutes as he lifted off and looked close to tears as his miserable spell on loan from Bayern Munich continues.
And Carvalhal, who insisted he had no concerns of the Portugal international’s fitness ahead of the game, does not believe he will be available to face the Gunners at the Liberty.
“We must wait 48 hours to check it, I don’t think he will be ready to play the next game for sure.” he said.
Sanches was making his first appearance since suffering a ham- string injury in the third-round clash with Wolves, but he only lasted 32 minutes as he lifted off and looked close to tears as his miserable spell on loan from Bayern Munich continues.
And Carvalhal, who insisted he had no concerns of the Portugal international’s fitness ahead of the game, does not believe he will be available to face the Gunners at the Liberty.
“We must wait 48 hours to check it, I don’t think he will be ready to play the next game for sure.” he said.
“He had been training well at 100 per cent but these things can happen in football and it is unfortunate for him.”
The draw meant Swansea missed out on winning three games in a row for the first time this season, and they must wait to try and seal a place in the fifth round for the first time in four years.
Following the euphoria of the win over Liverpool on Monday, this was a case of returning to earth with a bit of a bump, but the Portuguese declared himself happy with the result given he had made eight changes. “I am not disappointed,” he said. “I would be disappointed if we were out of the competition, but even if that happened it is not the end of the world.
“There were positives, we are still in the cup. We made eight changes and gave chances to players who have not played for a long time.
“The negative was we drew when we wanted to win. We controlled the game and got a goal, we could not get another one but we had the game under control.
“They deserved their goal as they got more physical and won the second balls and we have to give credit to them.
“We were on the offensive in the final 20 minutes, we moved the ball around and had two clear chances we did not take. This is football.
“But we are not losing games and we have another chance to go to the next stage.
Mesa was not among those involved as he was left out of the squad as talks over a possible loan move to Sevilla continue.