PNE: Stuart McCall press conference
The defender has been missing since the end of October for PNE
Preston North End assistant Stuart McCall is seeing light at the end of the tunnel with regards to injuries.
The Lilywhites will still go into this weekend’s match at Oxford United still without a handful of senior players, but Mads Frokjaer is said to be back available. Pol Valentin, Harrison Armstrong and Jordan Thompson have all returned to the pitch of late.
Andrija Vukcevic came off the bench in second half injury time on Tuesday night, while Brad Potts was back in the squad for the first time all season. McCall is now eager to see the likes of Lewis Gibson, Ali McCann and Robbie Brady return to the fold.
“I think what's encouraging is when you looked at the bodies we had to come back, they were all going to make us stronger,” said McCall. “JT's got a lot of minutes under his belt, Harrison's back in, Mads is back available, Andy's come back in.
“And, there are some lads not far away. Pol’s got minutes under his belt as well. As long as we didn’t get a catalogue of injuries again, we were only going to get stronger and competition in the squad is key to being successful.
“Jordan Thompson unfortunately got misdiagnosed from his injury when he was at Stoke. So, he's been out longer than he thought but to get him back in, you can see the lads welcoming him back.
“Same with Andy; he’s been out six, seven weeks. Gibbo will be the same. He's back on the grass. I think he'll be joining in with us, full training, in two weeks' time. Then it'll be Robbie Brady, who's an infectious character, a popular character.
“Ali McCann's been training with us but obviously, can't join in the physical side of it. When you get lads like that back - Keano’s another one - and they’ve been out for so long, everyone just wills them to be back. Hopefully, they can get injury free runs now.”
During his pre-match press conference on Thursday, McCall highlighted how PNE always carry a threat in games. He went on to agree that would be the single biggest difference from last season, to this.
“Yeah, and if you look we've been without players in the forward areas as well,” said McCall. “Mads (Frokjaer) comes on at Sheffield Wednesday, scores and unfortunately, he misses the next game. He can be a game-changer coming off the bench, or even starting. We are obviously without Milly as well, and we maybe can't start off with two strikers sometimes, if we've only got two out-and-out strikers.
“Keano needs to get some game time. We're getting bounce games between now and the next two or three weeks. We'll get some games racked up so the likes of himself and Pottsy and Ali McCann can start getting some actual football, rather than just being on the bench and thinking, ‘Can we just bring you on for 10 minutes, 15 minutes?’ But, it's good that we're getting players back now and the squad's looking healthy.”
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