Jack Wilshere has offered an update on the fitness of Liam Walsh, Hakeem Odoffin and Sverre Sandal ahead of tomorrow’s League One clash with Burton Albion at Kenilworth Road.
Walsh is back in training after a frustrating spell out, although Wilshere admits he must be handled carefully.
“He picked up a knock. He’s back training,” the manager said. “I said he had an infection which wasn’t great for him and he struggled with that to recover. But he also picked up a knock in that game. Nothing serious, nothing bad. It was probably about ten days in the end where he couldn’t have much contact, so then we have to build him back up.”
Asked if Walsh would be available, Wilshere added: “Yeah, he’s back training, so he’ll be available. He hasn’t trained much so I have to take that into consideration, but he’s back.”
On Odoffin, Wilshere confirmed the former Rotherham man has only just returned to full training.
“Haks trained for the first time fully today, which is good. He’s been around the group, stepping in, stepping out of training, topping up his fitness,” he said.
“It’s easy to rush that type of player character back because he’s so important for the group, but we’ve had to manage him. He’s now back fully training and he has to build his minutes up.”
However, Wilshere suggested this weekend may come too soon. “It might be a bit early because this is the first proper training session today, but it’s not far away.”
Transfer deadline day signing Sandal remains further behind in developing his fitness, as Wilshere said: “He’s still building up. He picked up a little bit of a knock. Nothing bad. It probably set him back a week or so now.
“He’s building up his fitness with the fitness staff. Hopefully it won’t be too long before he starts back into training, but then again we have to build his minutes up as well because he hasn’t played since November. So yeah, he’s not ready yet and he’ll probably be a little while.”
Be the first to comment