AIMING FOUR A RETURN
WELCOME BOOST FOR BOSS AS CITY STARS BACK IN TRAINING
COVENTRY City were due to see four of their key players return to training this week as the Sky Blues prepare for their next tests in Sky Bet League One.
While Premier League and Championship clubs are enjoying a rest with the international break, Coventry are in action on Saturday as they take on Rochdale at St Andrew’s.
Three of the four players who are due to have returned to training this week have not kicked a ball for the Sky Blues this season, and will come as welcome additions to Robins and the first-team squad.
Striker Jordy Hiwula will help ease the current striker crisis when he returns to the fold – City forced to play Saturday’s FA Cup tie at Colchester United with just one fit and available front man, Amadou Bakayoko, due to on-going injuries and suspensions – while long-term casualties Jamie Allen, Jodi Jones and Josh Pask will ramp up competition in the camp for the second half of the campaign.
“Jordy was still not right,” said the City boss, explaining Hiwula’s absence in Saturday’s 2-0 victory over Colchester in the FA Cup first round. “But he’s due to start training on Monday. Jodi Jones should be joining in as well if his thigh is OK and Jamie Allen and Josh Pask will also be joining in, so there’s four more closer to fitness, which is good.”
Hiwula has been out for three weeks with an ankle injury but if he gets a full week’s training in he should be available for Saturday’s clash against the Dale.
The other three, however, are still a few weeks away from a return to the senior side, all needing to build up their sharpness and fitness in full contact training and test their respective recovered injuries, while also getting match minutes in the Under-23s and possibly next week’s Birmingham Senior Cup tie at neighbours Nuneaton Borough.
Summer signing from Burton Albion, Allen, is yet to make his competitive debut for the Sky Blues due to a deep tissue muscle strain that has been almost impossible to treat apart from rest.
The midfielder, who was expected to be a key member of the team this season, sat out the first six weeks of the campaign but broke down within minutes of his attempted come-back in the Under-23s, forcing another extended spell on the sidelines.
“The first time he did it he was out for six weeks and then he played in the 23s and it went again,” said Robins. “So this injury is clearly something we have to be careful with because he was training and pain free and doing everything fine and then he started his warm-up in the game, felt something and then retore it. So what do you do this time, leave it six weeks and do the same again or give him maybe a week or two longer.”
Jones, meanwhile, has been out for almost exactly a year with a rerupture of a cruciate knee ligament injury. He broke down against Peterborough United last November, just two months into his return from his first ACL injury suffered in 2017.
He has been making good progress but had a little set-back last week when he suffered a muscle strain to a thigh.
Former West Ham United Academy graduate Josh Pask, meanwhile, was signed in the summer to add defensive cover at centre-half and right-back. He underwent surgery on an ankle injury in August, a situation that prompted City to draft in Tennai Watson on loan from Reading to provide cover.