Injuries concern Pearce
22 Sep 2006 - 09:50:50
Under-fire Manchester City manager Stuart Pearce's chances of lifting his team up the Premiership table continue to be undermined by a lengthy injury list.
Pearce is under pressure after his side lost 2-1 to Chesterfield in the Carling Cup on Wednesday and City face a crucial Premiership clash against another under-achieving side - West Ham United - on Saturday.
"Darius (Vassell) is still unavailable, Sun Jihai, Nedum (Onuoha), Andreas Isaksson and Hatem (Trabelsi) are the five first-teamers we've got out at the moment," Pearce told City's official website.
"Andreas Isaksson will be somewhere between six and eight weeks. With Trabelsi we're hoping he'll be okay in maybe three weeks.
"And we hope Vass will only be a couple of weeks away if all goes well and there's no setbacks.
"Nedum's got a meeting at the Institute of Sport on Monday, that I'll go to with just to have a look at him, but he's coming along pretty well. Because of the nature of the re-injury that he's suffered we've got to be a touch careful with him.
"Sun Jihai's training outside at the moment. He's just building up on a progression of work that we've given him as a plan over the last two weeks and he's handling that quite well."