Laursen, Freddy & Sidwell Injury Updates

The official site have updated the Martin Laursen situation and although it isn't great news, it also isn't too devastating. Martin O'Neill has confirmed that the Danish defensive rock has suffered a reaction to his knee injury but says it is a minor set back following soreness and a bit of puffiness after training.

'Hopefully it will only be a three or four day setback. But any setback at this stage would be a genuine one simply because of Martin's importance to the team. Maybe his enthusiasm was too strong - he was possibly doing too much, too soon. But we will see. He may even have been ahead of schedule at one stage - so we just hope it's a minor setback at the moment.'

There are also updates on Steve Sidwell, who picked up an injury before the Dubai trip but isn't far off fitness and Wilfred Bouma who was rested last night instead of featuring in the reserve win over Portsmouth. MON said of Wilf:

'Wilfred, of course, has just had the one reserve game but he has done plenty of training now, which is very encouraging. I am not saying he is ready immediately because he has been out for a long time, but it is great to see him back.'

So we aren't far off a full contingent of players for the run in to the end of the season, would be great to see both Wilf and Laursen back, but if not now at least they should be fit and ready for next season's onslaught, so down to the rest of the squad to make sure that includes Champions League football for us all to savour!?

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