First Team

Boss hopeful on injured trio

Edwards sweating on the fitness of several members of his squad to face Sunderland on Wednesday

rb

Rob Edwards is hopeful that the knocks sustained to several of his players in Saturday’s brilliant derby win will not rule them out of Wednesday’s clash with league leaders Sunderland.

Tahith Chong, Reece Burke, Tom Krauß and Tom Holmes all came off in the 3-0 win over the Hornets but the manager remained coy on who is and isn’t available for the visit of the Black Cats.

“I need to play my cards close to my chest here a bit but we’ve got one out and we’re hopeful on three of them,” Edwards said at his pre-match press conference on Tuesday.

“We’re not likely to get one else who’s already been out back, but we’re hopeful, which is not too bad news.

“We’re definitely going to have to make at least one adjustment, maybe more, and we’ll give as much as time to those players as possible.

“Whoever is going to play has set themselves a standard after Saturday’s performance but we’ll go with who we’ll go with.”

The Town will definitely be without Shandon Baptiste who, despite training and is close to a return, won’t be fit to face Sunderland, while Liam Walsh serves the final game of a three-match suspension following his red card against Oxford.

On the injury situation, Edwards added: “It’s been really challenging but, touch wood, thankfully it’s not been as bad as last season where we were having players out for the rest of the season.

“Thankfully the injuries we’ve had have been a bit shorter, but hopefully over the next coming week we’ll be back to somewhere near full strength.”

Full press conference to come on LTFC+

Related Content

  1. 01
  2. 02
  3. 03