Eddie Howe has revealed that Joe Willock is struggling to shake off an achilles injury that saw him miss 18 games between late November and mid February.
The midfielder struggled in Saturday’s 1-0 win over Fulham before he was replaced by Elliot Anderson in the 40th minute.
Howe admits that Willock is “still feeling” the injury and has been for “some time now.” The club hoped he would “steadily improve” over the past few weeks, so it’s an ongoing concern that he’s still having trouble, especially with Joelinton, Lewis Miley and Sandro Tonali all unavailable.
“Joe’s still feeling his achilles. He has been feeling this problem for some time now. We hoped that he would steadily improve. Today was a down day for him and he did not look right and unable to continue.
“I don’t think he was in huge pain but it was enough for him to not be at his very best. So we made a change and I thought Elliot Anderson did well. Harvey Barnes did well and the subs who came on and did well at the end. It was a huge performance from those who were fit.”
Injuries aside, the boss was delighted with the win, revealing his relief at full time and hailing our “incredible response” to a slow start, describing it as one of our “best wins of the season.”
“I’m relieved.” Howe said. “It was a very difficult opening 25 minutes, we were second best, we suffered. A change of attitude from us made the difference, we were stretched and there are reasons why we weren’t at our best in the opening period but it was an incredible response and I think it was one of our best wins of the season.
“We needed to look at things differently, we were a little bit reactive, a little bit late on things and that’s not like us. We were lucky to come into half-time at 0-0 and that was another opportunity.”
Howe was then asked about his message to the players when Martin Dubravka went down with a knock midway through the first half, revealing how we needed to “wake up” after such a slow start.
“I can’t repeat what I said but we just needed to wake up. In this game, in the Premier League, the ruthlessness of teams, if you are off it you will be punished. We were lucky to still be in the game at half time.
“I think it still being 0-0 [was important], we could have been out of the game. The issue was probably mental rather than physical, we lost a lot of duels that we should have won and Fulham punished us a lot right until the final action.”
