Luis Sinisterra will play for Leeds United on Saturday as he steps up his return from injury, Jesse Marsch has revealed. The Whites are expected to name a strong side this weekend at Accrington Stanley, with a spot in the draw for the fifth round of the FA Cup on the line.
It’s a competition that Leeds are taking very seriously and Marsch will expect to see Leeds see off the League One opposition comfortably. However, he’ll also be using the game to bolster Sinisterra’s fitness after seeing the winger miss a sizable chunk of the campaign with a foot injury.
The Colombian’s first season at Elland Road hasn’t exactly gone to plan, it’s fair to say. Injury and suspension saw him miss a handful of games over the first few months of the season before being ruled out once more in October.
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The Lisfranc issue saw him miss wins over Liverpool and Bournemouth and the entirety of Leeds’ mid-season training programme during the World Cup break. After two and a half months on the sidelines, though, Sinisterra was deemed fit enough to be involved in the club’s FA Cup replay with Cardiff City earlier this month, stepping off the bench to play the final 11 minutes of the contest.
He then made a Premier League return against Brentford, picking up 21 minutes of match action and Marsch has suggested he is ready to take the next step at the Wham Stadium. It remains to be seen whether that means he will start on Saturday, but the head coach is looking to see progress as he continues to integrate him into the side.
“We just had an individual meeting with Luis and talked about a lot of the different developments that he's had over the past months,” Marsch said in his pre-match press conference when asked about the process of his return. “We feel that physically he's moving himself in a good direction but that we have to increase his fitness for sure.
“But he will play on Saturday, and he'll be ready to go and I think that that's the best thing for him right now, match minutes.”
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