Speaker
Right, so in that injury news we're talking about, Eddie Nketiah, marquee signing of the summer, is now reportedly a major doubt for Palace's game with Fulham at the weekend. ah The Eagles are already missing Eze, Wharton, Lerma through injuries and Hughes through suspension, who's already managed to rack up um five yellow cards in the 10 games I've been in this season so fair play to him for that I think there's there's some hope that Richards could come back but yeah basically it's ah it's a pretty severely injury stricken Palace side Will Nketiah's absence be a big problem um for for Palace at the weekend, Wally? Well, of course, missing a player, missing any player, you know, provides some challenge, or some um line-up dilemma to the manager. Nketiah has been one of those that have played virtually all games this season. and An injury to him, especially considering Eze missed the last game. um Kinds of complicated matters. It's quite frustrating the the the way and manner in which the injury occurred. and I was just thinking, if I damage my work equipment outside of work, whether my employers would be very happy, even though I earn about in a year what Nketiah earns in a minute, I'm sure they wouldn't be. So I kind of understand, you know, what's happening, you know, in Palace at the moment. But um I'm sure Nketiah is not the only player who's having private training sessions. It's not the only player who's got personnel plans, you know, of improving his game. um What we read or what we've heard is that it might have overstressed or overstressed his muscles ah in in those private training sessions leading to ah the armstring injury. um Depending on how long it is, it's never great with armstring injuries. You just never know. ah Sometimes it could be two weeks. Sometimes you just could be away for six weeks. And sometimes you're there, but then you're just not fit and you're just not at optimum capacity and you're just not you're just scared to stretch the muscle of more than you should. So it's a bit frustrating. and ah Missing him will be definitely a dilemma for Glasner, especially you know with the ah when seem it seems like the team is you know getting some momentum, getting some games together. But but you could also argue maybe the fact that it's just one game before the international break, if indeed he will be missing the game or if indeed he's injured, maybe it's ah it's it's a better time to get injured than after the international break when there's a lot of many run of games to come. But ah very frustrating, the manner with the injuries happened. But Eze got Palace got a good result relatively without him. Hopefully ah you know the team will carry on the belief into the Fulham game and whether Nketiah is missing or not, hopefully the team can still grind our results. As you as you've touched on there, Wale, part of the story is the way this has occurred. Reportedly, Palace are concerned that Nketiah picked the injury up in a private session with a personal trainer and they are looking, the club are looking at changing their procedures to, I guess, dissuade players from doing, so other players from doing similar extracurricular training um and prevent similar injuries. I just wonder whether you can, can you know exactly when a player got injured? You absolutely can't. You absolutely can't prove it. I also think with this, like it's it' not a clear-cut issue of whether it's a good or bad thing. It's kind of private training. It's at its worst a well-intentioned but ultimately misguided idea. I can see why the clubs think think oh well you know we've devised a training plan we've got sports scientists we've got physios they shouldn't do anything outside of what they're telling them to do but we always hear players lauded for staying behind at the training ground and taking extra penalties and free kicks and there are players who it's worked for in, Mateta has done loads with private trainers over the last year or so, working on his speed and explosiveness and recent benefit of that. I'm sure I read somewhere once that Van Dijk does quite a lot of um private fitness and medical work, although i mean I can actually find this when I tried to Google it as an article. ah But I think, you know, we shouldn't really be criticising Nketiah for this. We used 10, 15, 20 years ago the idea that a footballer's greatest sin is being too professional and training too hard would have been absurd. So I don't think we can be overly harsh on him for this. Dan, how would you like to see Kvassner adapt? What would you like to see him maybe tweak to make up for the absence of Nketiah at the weekend? Because we probably would have assumed him to start right-of-wise. Well, yeah, you would definitely have assumed him to start. So I think you get... Sar is probably going to get dragged straight into the starting lineup because he's the next one on the depth chart on the team sheet. So it's basically now next one up. The problem is that it's the next one, next one up. The amount of injuries that we're starting to get. So I can't think of anybody else that's really in the first team. So we're probably going to have ah be looking towards a reserve squad and maybe even a couple of youth players to fill up some ah vacant spots, which will be great for some of them because they we are Palace. We are renowned for getting some really good youth players through the system. I think we are considered like one of the best youth academies and ah in the country, or at least we have a very, very good record for it. So I'm all for getting one or two of the kids up, give them a ah game in the premiership, 15, 20 minutes, see what happens. But it's still very much the next one up. um So yeah, S Sar is going to get ah put into the front line. I'm not sure how injured Edze is, so um he'll probably be chucked out there as well, putting as much steroids in there, the walking wounded. Come on, lads, let's keep going. we've only got You've got a 10-day break. It's fine. Don't worry. Yeah, of it I think you're right. It's definitely a good luck opportunity to you to bring a youth player in. I kind of suspect it'll just be Jeffrey Schlopp coming in. I think probably as well. as he from yeah Interesting prospects like... and The Swiss Army knife that is Schlopp, just chuck him in somewhere. He'll be fine. Who knows we've got to pass him on? Just throw schlopped in. But yeah, there are some interesting youth players. It's a shame that for a moment like this, that someone like Cesare and Raksaki is not about, it would have been a good chance for for him. But I can see why I would set him on loan because what i anticipated maybe as many injuries as palace are struggling with now particularly of so many versatile players um yeah obviously probably like commander in here normally but he's gonna have to play center mid i think most likely at the weekend um but yeah i mean i I did also see that Joel Ward is looking like he's on his way to coming back to full fitness, might be available for the game. So I wonder if... Put Joel Ward up front, go for it. Yeah, well, it won't be that. It'll