Japanese international defender Daiki Hashioka will be available for Boxing Day’s trip to Bristol City, manager Rob Edwards revealed at his pre-match press conference.
The 25-year-old missed Friday’s win over Derby after picking up a muscle strain in the defeat at Blackburn six days earlier, but has trained fully to be back in contention for the trip to Ashton Gate.
“Hashi will be available, which is good,” said Rob. “Although it looked like everyone had got through it, we’ve got one or two question marks, which I won’t give you now for obvious reasons, but we are hoping that everyone that was involved the other day comes through now.”
Of the longer term injured players, the boss gave positive updates on fellow defenders Reuell Walters, Amari’i Bell and Alfie Doughty.
“We’ve got people making decent progress,” he said. “Reuell has been really stepping up well, but he’s obviously been out for a decent period, so he’s looking like the next one back. Amari’i and Alfie are doing all right, but not ready yet.
“There is a bit of light there at the end of the tunnel, which we’ve said before haven’t we? But they are good names, when I’m saying things like that. There are some good players there that we are without at the moment, and you listen to [managers] up and down the country, you see football and it’s happening to a lot of people at different places as well. We all have to go through it.
“It’s been a really challenging time, but the lads are giving us everything. The ones that are available right now are fighting really hard and we know over the next few weeks that we can get stronger again, so we can take a lot of heart from that.”
Asked about the atmosphere around the squad since the last-gasp 2-1 win over the Rams at Kenilworth Road, Rob added: “There has been a good feel about the place, as you can imagine, after that.
“We are really desperate to try and back that up now with back-to-back results. We want to see a good performance and we are going to need a good performance to get anything from the game anyway. Bristol City will want to react after their own defeat yesterday.
“They are at home and Boxing Day will be a good crowd, so they’ll want to put on a good performance and want to win the game, so we know how difficult it will be.
“But the atmosphere after the last result and the way it happened, the manner of it, has been great. The lads have trained well, so let’s go and take it into an away game and hopefully get the positive result.”
