Norwich City boss Johannes Hoff Thorup confirms double injury blow ahead of Sunderland clash
Norwich City boss Johnnes Hoff Thorup has delivered a fitness update on his squad ahead of their Championship clash with Sunderland on Tuesday evening.
The Black Cats travel to Carrow Road off the back of consecutive 1-0 victories over Millwall and West Brom, and will be eager to record another positive result against the Canaries, having sealed a 2-1 win in the reverse fixture at the Stadium of Light just prior to Christmas. For their part, Norwich have won just one of their last five league outings, and have dropped to 11th in the table as a result – some eight points adrift of the play-off places with six matches left to contest. On Saturday, the Canaries slumped to a 2-1 defeat at the hands of relegation-threatened Plymouth Argyle.
What did Johnnes Hoff Thorup say about Norwich City’s fitness status ahead of Sunderland clash?
Speaking in a press conference on Monday afternoon, Thorup confirmed a double injury blow for his side, with both winger Matej Jurasek and full-back Lucien Mahovo expected to be absent for Sunderland’s trip to Norfolk.
On Jurasek, the Canaries boss confirmed that the Czech is still experiencing some pain from the quad issue that ruled him out of Saturday’s defeat to Plymouth. He said: “We have to be more careful with him. The scan was a good one in terms of no major injury, but he is probably a bit fatigued. I would love to give him some minutes in one of the games this season, hopefully as a starter. We aren’t going to just shut down the season yet and say that he won’t play.”
Meanwhile, on Mahovo, Thorup said: “He felt something and will probably be out for a while. We will scan him and find out, but it is never positive when a player feels something in the quad. Originally it was the knee, so this is another injury.”
Do Sunderland have any fresh injury concerns heading into Tuesday’s clash vs Norwich City?
Sunderland suffered an injury blow of their own over the weekend when Romaine Mundle was forced off early against West Brom. Speaking in a press conference on Monday, Black Cats head coach Regis Le Bris said: “Romaine has a hamstring injury but we don’t know yet the timeline.
“We need to seek some further advice from some specialists and so we will have to wait a little bit. It’s possible (his season could be over), we’ll have to make a decision about the situation. It’s not up to us really, we need to specific advice before we can make a specific decision.”
Elsewhere, on Enzo Le Fée, who returned to Sunderland’s match day squad on Saturday, Le Bris added: “First of all, we have to protect Enzo. He needs to gradually improve his shape and connection with the team without being rushed. This is the first idea for us. The second is that we still have six games left in the league, so we have many chances to try different options.”
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