ENDA STEVENS IS yet to return to full training at Sheffield United after new club boss Slavisa Jokanovic confirmed he will miss the Championship opener against Birmingham City this weekend.
The 31-year-old had travelled to Spain for the club’s pre-season camp last month but did not join in any of the sessions with the rest of his teammates, and he has still not made sufficient progress as he deals with an unspecified injury.
Jokanovic suggested after his side’s final pre-season game last week that they “need to wait some weeks more” to assess Stevens’ situation, and in the build up to the new season earlier today he admitted that the left-back is still “not working with the team.”
Stevens also missed the Republic of Ireland’s nine-day training camp in Spain earlier this summer, including the friendlies against Andorra and Hungary, and manager Stephen Kenny revealed he needed an injection to deal with inflammation around the centre of the pelvis.
“We have a number of players with legitimate injuries, and we’ve had scans back from the clubs to confirm all that. After a hard season some players, take for example Enda Stevens, has had to have an osteitis-pubis injection,” Kenny said in May.
While it has not been confirmed that this is the issue continuing to hinder Stevens, it throws into doubt whether he will also be available for Ireland’s World Cup qualifying triple header early next month.
Ireland face Portugal in Faro on 1 September before a double header in Dublin on the fourth and seventh against Azerbaijan and Serbia, respectively.
They need a man that will cover all the angles as the US will be gunning in two years. I wonder would he be a head wrecking captain and will Garcia be in the running!
@The Croupier: Garcia will only be 40 at the next Ryder cup … if he doesn’t considerably lose form I would expect he is still in the running for a place in the team ??
@The Croupier: cringe. The captain, while an honour essentially a ceremonial position. Not a whole lot to it.