Manning, Laird in contention for a place

RUSSELL Martin has confirmed Ethan Laird and Ryan Manning have both trained ahead of tomorrow’s South Wales derby clash with Cardiff City.

Speaking in his pre-match press conference, the head coach revealed that he has a fully-fit squad to select from when his side host the Bluebirds this weekend.

Olivier Ntcham, Ryan Bennett and Michael Obafemi have all been back on the training ground during the international break while Laird and Manning had to pull out of international duty with England’s Under-20s and Republic of Ireland respectively.

And Martin has explained the situations of Manning and Laird prior to the visit of Cardiff.

“Ryan’s ankle flared up at Derby. After the game it was really sore, so he met up with Ireland and he went and had a scan, and it showed we needed to get it sorted,” he said about Manning.

“He’s trained the last two or three days and he’s come through it fine. Last week we took him off his feet to make sure he got his ankle checked out.

“If it was a World Cup final, we might have let him push through it, but when we’ve got a long season ahead and there’s another international break in November, he couldn’t have played in the first game, and there was a lot of travelling involved and he wouldn’t have been able to train. Ireland were great with how they dealt with it and liaised with us, they agreed it was the best thing for him to come back.”

And on Laird, the head coach commented: “He’s been struggling. We couldn’t start him against Derby. He came on and didn’t look himself. He had a whack at Luton, he’s done well just to keep going. It came to a point where it just got too much.

“We took him out of the England Under-20s squad, and they were great with it. Ethan had a few extra days off than the rest of the guys.

“He’s a young guy, he’s come in and played loads of games already. He got assessed at Manchester United and then came back to us at the end of last week and he’s trained through all of this week.”

John Eustace says Queens Park Rangers’ progression under Mark Warburton played a part in his decision to remain in London rather than joining Swansea.

“I’m very happy here,” he told Sky Sports News when asked about why his switch to Swansea collapsed.

“There’s a fantastic group here, great owners, I’m loving working with Mark and I’m learning a lot.”

And when asked if he wanted to take the leap back into full time management again soon, he responded: “Yeah, possibly in the future, but as say, it’s all about my development.

“I’m loving working with Mark, I’m loving working for the club. I’m learning all the time so I’m in no rush for that.”