Despite hammer blows, Stoke City’s injury problems are ‘not a curse.’
Clayton Wood updates the situation as Stoke City prepares to face Southampton without six senior players.
Stoke City fans are hoping that the injury woes that have befallen the team in the first few weeks of the season are not the same as the injury curse that has befallen the club in previous years.
Michael Rose (groin) and Lynden Gooch (hamstring) will join Ryan Mmaee (hamstring), Andre Vidigal (ankle), Tyrese Campbell, and Enda Stevens (calf) in the treatment room for tonight’s Championship clash. The first two injuries suffered in Saturday’s victory over Bristol City are regarded to be minor, and the majority of them are anticipated to recover in time for the upcoming international break.
Campbell’s absence might last several months, while Rose’s absence demonstrates why Neil was anxious to bring in a fourth center-back during the transfer window. He has two right now: Ben Wilmot and Luke McNally. Mmaee and Vidigal have no legitimate injury history, so there’s no reason to be concerned about their future, especially as they acclimatize to the frenzied atmosphere of the Championship.
Indeed, a particularly difficult fixture list could explain why there is currently a physio backlog.
“There are too many games in quick succession,” Alex Neil observed. “We’ve got seven games in a row, seven games in 21 days between international breaks, which is absurd, especially given the intensity of the Championship right now.” I feel, as I stated at the outset of the season, that this is the best Championship I’ve ever seen. That is to say, there is a collection of extremely good sides.”Leeds were a wonderful team under Bielsa, Norwich were a great team under me, Middlesbrough were a great team under Karanka, Fulham were a great team under Jokanovic, and Wolves were a terrific team under Nuno. This season, I believe you have a variety of extremely powerful clubs. There are few, if any, who are much weaker than everyone else.
“If you ask the lads openly, and I’ve had open discussions with a number of them, they can’t believe the pace, the speed of the game.” They explain it to me this way: when they used to play, the ball moved from side to side, whereas the Championship moves from end to end. The game is always played in both directions.
“If you come from Basel, as Wouter (Burger) did, or Ferencvaros, as Ryan did, they were in dominant teams.” There were maybe two or three difficult clubs to play against, but for the rest of the games, they passed and passed and passed till they broke the tie. The game will be played at full speed for 95 or 100 minutes, regardless of whether you are playing the top or bottom of the league.
“And that’s another factor about picking up more injuries, that the games are lasting longer.”
Stoke City were one of just five Championship clubs to advance to the third round of the Carabao Cup, resulting in a midweek trip to Bournemouth as the rest of the league enjoyed a rare week free. The players and supporters have also traveled to Ipswich, Norwich, Millwall, and Bristol City.
“The fact that we’ve had a couple of wins in cup ties has meant that we’ve played as many games as we possibly could have done to this point – and it’s not like we’ve had an easy ride in those ties either,” Neil said. We had West Brom at home, which we obviously wanted to win, then Bournemouth away, with all of the associated travel.
“Arguably we’ve had the worst possible fixtures that you could have picked in terms of keeping players fresh and ready for league matches.”
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