Now Muamba sufferes injury
9:10am Thursday 11th March 2010 in Sport By Marc Iles
Wanderers’ injury jinx appears to have hit again with the news that Fabrice Muamba is now a doubt for this weekend’s derby clash with Wigan.
The combative midfielder sustained a bruised thigh in the 4-0 defeat against Sunderland on Tuesday night, which forced him off the pitch midway through the second half.
And Owen Coyle has revealed that he now has concerns about the 21-year-old’s chances of featuring against the Latics on Saturday.
“I’m always worried when players take knocks,” he said. “I think it was a straight hit, so it’s more of a dead leg than anything else — but you saw his movement was totally restricted. He couldn’t move at all, if truth be told.”
The string of injuries to have hit Wanderers in recent weeks has been enough to stretch Coyle’s resources to their very limits.
Stuart Holden is out for another month with a broken leg, Gavin McCann now looks unlikely to feature again this season because of upcoming ankle surgery, and Chris Basham — perhaps the most likely candidate to fill Muamba’s boots in normal circumstances — has also missed the last fortnight after turning his ankle in a reserve team game.
Tamir Cohen’s return from suspension will lighten the injury load a little, although Sam Ricketts will now miss the game against the Latics after he too picked up a red card in midweek.
Such was Coyle’s predicament against Sunderland that he was forced to employ Chung-Yong Lee at right-back after shifting Gretar Steinsson to centre-half with his side a man down.
Vladimir Weiss also made an encouraging cameo from the bench, giving the Scot a few limited options to play with, heading into a game that Wanderers could do without losing.
“He’s a very good player and that’s why we brought him here. It’s been very difficult getting him a start because of the form of Chung-Yong Lee — and he ended up at right-back, with Vlad at right midfield because of the injury situation we had the other night,” he said.
“Tamir Cohen’s suspended, Stuart Holden’s injured, Fabrice Muamba got a knock — so we haven’t had the greatest luck in that area. But what we have done is put ourselves into a position in the league, which gives us a platform and a base to move onwards and upwards from.
“If we want to do that, we have to make sure we fit and refreshed ready to go and give our best on Saturday.”
The mood around the Reebok has shifted markedly from the start of the week, where talk of breaking into the top 10 had begun in earnest after back-to-back victories against Wolves and West Ham.
This, reckons Coyle, is part and parcel of life at the bottom end of the Premier League — although he remains confident that the club have enough left in the tank to see themselves to safety by May.
“These margins are minimal at this level,” he said. “But our fans, who were brilliant again on Tuesday night, know how much the players are giving. And it’s been a big ask because we’ve played Saturday-Tuesday or Wednesday pretty much every week since I have been here, and the one time we didn’t, I had 12 players away on international duty.”
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