Stoke City injury blight ‘not a curse’ despite hammer blows
News from Clayton Wood as Stoke City prepare to take on Southampton without six senior players
There is hope inside Stoke City that the injury blows which have rained down on the opening few weeks of this season are different to the injury curse which has beset the club over recent years.
Stoke head into tonight’s Championship clash without six probable starters as Michael Rose (groin) and Lynden Gooch (hamstring) join Ryan Mmaee (hamstring), Andre Vidigal (ankle), Tyrese Campbell and Enda Stevens (calf) in the treatment room. The first two, who hobbled out of Saturday’s win at Bristol City, are understood to be relatively minor and there is hope that most will recover to be available straight after the upcoming international break.
It could be a couple of months for Campbell, however, while the absence of Rose highlights why Neil was keen to bring in a fourth centre-back in the transfer window. At the moment, he only has two: Ben Wilmot and Luke McNally. Mmaee and Vidigal have no real history of injuries and there is no reason to worry they will have problems in the future, particularly as they acclimatise to the hectic world of the Championship.
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Indeed, a particularly demanding fixture list might help explain why there is a queue for the physios at the moment.
“It’s too many games through quick succession,” said Alex Neil. “We’ve got seven games in the bounce, seven games in 21 days between international breaks, which is ridiculous, especially with the intensity of the Championship now. I believe, and I said this at the start of the season, that this is probably the best Championship I’ve seen. By that I mean there’s a collection of really good sides.
“Bielsa’s Leeds were a great team, my Norwich team were a great team, Karanka’s Middlesbrough were a great team, Jokanovic’s Fulham were a great team, Nuno’s Wolves were a great team. I think this season you’ve got a collection of really, really strong teams. There are very few, if any, that are particularly weaker than everybody else.
“If you ask the lads openly, and I’ve had open discussions with quite a few of them, they can’t believe the pace of the game, the speed of the game. How they describe it to me is that where they have been playing previously, the ball works from side to side, the Championship goes from end to end. The game goes both ways all the time.
“If you’re coming from Basel in Wouter (Burger)’s case or Ferencvaros in Ryan’s case, they were in dominant teams. There was maybe two or three difficult clubs to face but with the rest of the
fixtures, they pass and pass and pass and pass until they break the deadlock. Here, whether you’re playing the top of the league or whether you’re playing the bottom of the league, that game is going to go at full pelt for 95 or 100 minutes.
“And that’s another factor about picking up more injuries, that the games are lasting longer.”
