Ange Postecoglou reveals double Nottingham Forest injury blow ahead of Sunderland clash
Sunderland face Nottingham Forest at the City Ground on Saturday evening
Nottingham Forest have been handed a double injury blow ahead of Sunderland’s trip to the City Ground on Saturday evening.
Boss Ange Postecoglou has confirmed that both Murillo and Douglas Luiz will be absent through injury, with central defender Murillo still recovering from a thigh issue that he picked up in Postecoglou’s first game in charge. Midfielder Douglas Luiz, meanwhile, suffered a hamstring injury in the 2-2 draw with Real Betis in the Europa League earlier this week.
“Murillo is still kind of not where we want him to be,” Postecoglou said.
“He is still not totally comfortable. He is still doing his individual training, and we hoped it would progress a little quicker. Obviously it was a pretty severe knock on his thigh, and the understanding was the healing process has been slower than what we thought. He just doesn’t feel comfortable, so we have to be patient with him.
“He is out on the grass and he is kind of working individually so it is about incorporating him back into the team.”
Nikola Milenković is expected to be available despite suffering cramp in that draw with Real Betis, and is therefore likely to line up alongside Morato in the heart of the Nottingham Forest defence.
“Dougie wasn’t great yesterday either,” Postecoglou said of Luiz.
“We have sent him for a scan on his hamstring, he won’t be available for this weekend. We just have got to be really careful how we use him at the early parts of the year. He obviously had a lot of issues last year at Juventus and came in late here. I think we are being cautious, but we’ll see what the scans say and if he will be available this week.
“It is nothing serious, we know that it is nothing significant.”
Defender Ola Aina and midfielder Nicolas Dominguez are longer-term absentees for Nottingham Forest, with Postecoglou adding that there are no fresh injury concerns following Wednesday night’s game.
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Sunderland team news ahead of Nottingham Forest trip
Régis Le Bris has confirmed that Luke O’Nien is now back in contention for selection at Sunderland. O’Nien is fully training with the squad after suffering a dislocated shoulder in the early stages of the play-off final win over Sheffield United at Wembley, and is contention to make the squad when the Black Cats travel to Nottingham Forest this weekend.
There is now a vacancy within the squad, with Reinildo beginning a three-game suspension after being dismissed for violent conduct last weekend. Le Bris is confident that he has the options in his squad to cover Reinildo’s absence, with the head coach weighing up whether to bring Arthur Masuaku in or recall Dan Ballard and move another player across.
“Yeah, Luke is now connected with the the squad fully, so he's an option now,” Le Bris said.
“Lucha [Geertruida] as well has played centre back, right back, left back, so he's an option. We have Arthur as well, so I think for the back line, we have different options.
“I think when we built the the squad with the recruitment structure, the sporting direction, we thought about different options and I think we have a player to cover this position [Arthur] and we have versatility as well to to create other options depending on the scenario, the opponent, the dynamic of the squad and so on.”
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