Coventry City boss Mark Robins reveals Jamie Allen’s ‘potentially career threatening’ heart scare
Coventry City news from CoventryLive as Mark Robins reveals the reason behind Jamie Allen’s absence from pre-season
Mark Robins has revealed the reason behind Coventry City midfielder Jamie Allen’s pre-season absence after the player suffered a potentially career threatening heart scare.
The Sky Blues boss has described the roller-coaster of a month the 27-year-old has had after becoming a dad for the first time and ending up in hospital with a serious health issue.
As a result of the incident, along with high profile cases in recent years with Fabrice Muamba and Christian Eriksen collapsing during matches, the club are testing the entire squad and staff.
Explaining Allen’s absence in recent weeks, Robins told CoventryLive: “Jamie has been in hospital and had an issue with his heart. He had a funny turn, an episode or whatever you want to call it and so had all the investigations in hospital. Fortunately he’s fine so he can resume his work.
“It was pericarditis, so there was inflammation around the heart which had to settle down, but he’s had to take things steady. I don’t know how that comes about, whether it’s a virus I don’t know but, as a result, everyone has had cardiac screening yesterday, staff included, so hopefully we can have a clean bill of health for everyone.
“I was in Spain on holiday when he rang and we were clearly concerned about him, so the doctor got him down. His wife gave birth to their first born, a son, around the same time.”
Breaking into a chuckle, he added: “I asked if they were going to call him Mark, but I don’t think they have!
“But I think it was really important that it was picked up and dealt with for Jamie, and he’s back with us now. It will take him a little bit of time to build up that fitness and energy.
“That was about four weeks ago so he has been recovering since then and it was only really after the investigations that we did the other day that he could start back and resume his fitness work.”
Asked if it was a potentially career threatening issue, Robins said: “Absolutely. It’s been a real emotional roller-coaster for him with the baby and this health issue which wasn’t great for him. So I am glad he’s back on the mend.”
As for the heart screening and whether that was also on the back of high profile incidents in the game, the manager said: “We all wanted it doing and the players asked if they could have it done. I felt it was a good idea and Doug (King) felt the same way so we decided to get it done as quickly as possible and make sure everyone is in the rudest of health before the season kicks off.
“I think there are still nine to do next week but the majority have been tested. But you just never know, you don’t know what effects Covid has had or will have down the line. Some have had vaccinations and some haven’t. So it has been really good to get the testing done.”