Steve Bruce may have several injury issues of his own, but Crystal Palace look set to be without SIX first-team players on Saturday.
The Eagles travel up to Tyneside this weekend for our final game before Christmas, but they’ll have to do without Gary Cahill, Patrick Van Aanholt, Andros Townsend, Jeffrey Schlupp, Joel Ward and Jairo Riedewald.
This leaves Roy Hodgson with a real injury crisis in defence, with them currently having only ONE senior full-back fit in Martin Kelly – and even he is naturally move of a central defender.
Here’s what Hodgson’s had to say on the injury front today, claiming it’s the ‘worst injury crisis’ he’s faced at the club:
“We have six players missing. It’s the worst injury crisis since I came to the club.
“We have already lost both full-backs and the cover. We have lost Gary Cahill to injury and Andros Townsend. The team tonight (at Brighton) is the one we can field.
“If you look at the substitutes bench, you’ll see that there are three players who haven’t played before in the first team.”
Ciaran Clark could return to the squad this weekend and Almiron and Shelvey appear to be touch or go, however we’ll definitely be without Allan Saint-Maximin, Matt Ritchie and Jamaal Lascelles, with all three ruled out until the new year.
As for Palace, we may see a fair few square pegs in round holes on Saturday.
Let’s hope we can take advantage of that and get back on track after last weekend’s poor display and defeat at Burnley!
So Roy Hodgson has a real injury crisis in defence this weekend ??
Well tell him not to worry because we had 4 centre forwards on the pitch at the same time last weekend and not one of them could manage a shot on target…never mind score a goal ?
Jumping John Flash(Quote)