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Bristol Post
Bristol Post
Sport
Richard Forrester

Bristol City manager issues Han-Noah Massengo injury update amid midfield concerns for Robins

Han-Noah Massengo will face a late fitness test to determine whether he will be available to face Swansea on Sunday while Callum O'Dowda is out for up to six weeks with a knee injury.

Massengo hobbled off after 17 minutes in Bristol City's 2-1 victory over Reading on Wednesday after landing awkwardly on his hip before being replaced by Joe Williams.

Assistant Curtis Fleming was initially optimistic that the 20-year-old will be fit for the trip to Wales but manager Nigel Pearson suggests it will be a 50/50 whether Massengo has recovered in time and they will have to reassess his situation on Saturday.

Pearson also hinted Williams won't be fit enough to start after coming off the bench twice inside four days. He has yet to make a league start since the hamstring injury sustained against Stoke in November.

With Andy King undergoing hamstring surgery last week and Matty James' foot injury denying him a place in the team for the last six fixtures, it does leave the Robins short in centre midfield.

"We won't be able to tell with Han-Noah until tomorrow - that's not me avoiding it," Pearson said. "He obviously came off early in the game which meant that Joe had to come on early which is not good for us on the night.

"It's not particularly helpful for us in terms of managing Joe's load because he can't play three games in a week and he's obviously played half a game at Blackpool because there was a necessity to put him on and a necessity on Wednesday night so it's just one of those things."

One player who will certainly miss out is O'Dowda after his cameo was cut short during Wednesday's win. The winger was substituted just 19 minutes after coming onto the field after jarring his knee while competing for a header before being replaced by Robbie Cundy for his home debut.

When quizzed on whether there were any fresh injury concerns ahead of the weekend, Pearson revealed: "O'Dowda will be out for a number of weeks now, he came off with an injury. That injury normally takes four to six weeks, so that's life."

Pearson also provided an update on Nahki Wells and admitted he has returned to "running on grass" after Covid-19 ruled him out of the Reading victory. The striker had scored against Blackpool in his last outing on the back of two goals for the Under-23s in the week prior.

However, he gave no hints as to whether the 31-year-old will be back in the squad suggesting it could take a longer period to fully recover from his bout with the virus.

"He's been on the grass running so maybe he will (feature) or maybe he won't. With Covid, we can't just put a one outcome suits everybody," Pearson added.

"We've seen players struggle to return to form from it, we've seen players have no ill-effects. If you open that up to the wide population I think that happens to everybody so we can't just make the assumption that players who experience Covid can shake it off in three or four days so it might be another month before it hits them, we just don't know and that's the unpredictability of the situation."

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