Liam Manning has confirmed that Bristol City will be without Sinclair Armstrong for a “couple of weeks” with the striker ruled out of this weekend’s trip to West Brom.
The Robins will visit The Hawthorns on Sunday afternoon as they face Carlos Corberan’s side in front of the Sky Sports cameras for their final game before Christmas.
Albion have only managed to win two of their last 15 matches and head into this weekend’s fixture off of the back of a difficult 2-1 defeat to Watford at Vicarage Road last weekend.
City are looking to bounce back from their frustrating 1-1 draw with QPR last time out. While there is confidence in the Reds’ camp, Manning has revealed that Armstrong is the latest player in his squad to pick up a hamstring injury this season and admitted the Robins have changed their methods to try and prevent similar issues.
“He’s going to be a couple of weeks,” the City boss confirmed on Thursday afternoon. “It’s nothing major but when you’ve got such an explosive athlete, I think you have to be a little bit careful.
“It’s his hamstring. It’s the whole game. I’m going to go on a rant now but when you look at it, across the game there’s been more money spent on sports science, strength and conditioning, this that and the other but yet, injuries have gone through the roof. It’s something that the game has to look at as well.
“We’ve made changes from the start of the season here that you don’t necessarily see the impact of straight away because you’re trying to change three, four, five years worth of certain ways of working. Rather than continually doing what we’ve always done and expecting different results, we’re making quite a few changes in-house. I’ve been quite pleased with where the lads have been physically. Obviously, it’s been frustrating to lose certain players to injury, but we’re making changes to go in a different direction.”
Although Bristol City weren’t able to secure all three points against Marti Cifuentes’ side last time out, the Reds were boosted by the return of both Ross McCrorie and Scott Twine to the matchday squad. While McCrorie wasn’t introduced from the bench, Twine made an instant impact as he opened the scoring with his first touch.
Both players are expected to feature again at The Hawthorns on Sunday and they could be joined by George Tanner, with Manning confirming the right-back is now back training alongside his teammates.
“George Tanner has been back fully training this week,” confirmed the 39-year-old. “Obviously we’ve managed to get another week into Ross as well. Twiney’s been building it up.
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“It’s been good to get out on the grass and get some work into the lads so it’s been much better to have those back definitely. We’re going to need everybody. You need the depth, you need the options. We saw in the last week how important it is to be able to freshen things up and that’s what we’ve got.
“We’ve got the options and the depth and it’s then on the lads when they’re on there to do as much as they can for the team and off the back of that create myself and the staff some headaches.”
With Tanner, Twine and McCrorie back in contention, Bristol City’s injury list is beginning to shrink barring long-term absentees such as Ayman Benarous and Adam Murphy.
Joe Williams is also facing an extended spell on the sidelined having suffered a partial Achilles tendon tear in the Robins’ win over Preston North End in November. While the midfielder is still a few weeks away from returning to the fold, Manning insists he’s heading in the right direction.
“He had his meeting in London on Tuesday and it went well,” explained the City head coach. “He’s moving in the right direction and he’s still a few weeks away but it was a good meeting on Tuesday.”