Stoke City team news vs Coventry as Mark Robins delivers Ryan Mmaee update
Team news from Stoke City ahead of a trip to Coventry in the Championship
Mark Robins may have as strong a squad as he has enjoyed since he took over at Stoke City but that doesn’t necessarily mean everything is suddenly plain sailing on the fitness front.
Stoke were already missing ken men such as Ben Pearson, Sam Gallagher and Million Manhoef when Robins joined on New Year’s Day and it has taken time to get them back available for selection. They, plus Ben Wilmot, Eric Bocat and Jordan Thompson, have started to be drip fed back into matches over the last couple of weeks but managing their returns is another minefield – and coming at a critical stage of the season.
There is also Bosun Lawal and Ryan Mmaee, who have barely played this season and might need patience at a time when there is little leeway in the league table. Wouter Burger, meanwhile, has missed the last three games but was hoping to come back into contention at Coventry on Saturday (12.30pm).
Robins said: “It’s starting to look a bit better but, like I’ve said, you get players back and they’re fit but not game ready and you’ve got to be able to get them through games at this stage of the season – because games run out don’t they? We’ve got 11 games left and we’ve got a group of players who have been out for three, four months or longer, some of them.
“It’s about how you navigate that scenario. You think it becomes clearer over a week or two but that’s not necessarily the case .There are other elements that come into play, fatigue, the build up that fatigue and the muscle soreness that they have, and things like that. You have to just the amount of work you can do with them because you can’t kill them to start, you have to build them up to a level and that all takes time – and time is a commodity we don’t have too much of before the next game comes along. Those are the challenges for myself and the coaching staff.”
Mmaee moved to Rapid Vienna on loan at the end of the summer window but injured his thigh in his first training session – having missed a large chunk of last term with a thigh problem too. He had a set-back and then a hamstring injury before Rapid sent him back to Stoke without being able to get him on the pitch at all.
