Gus Poyet confirmed that Craig Mackail-Smith could miss the season finale with an Achilles injury after the Albion striker went down awkwardly on the brink of half-time in Bristol.
Albion’s top scorer was recalled to the starting line-up for the first time in a month and his injury is likely to force Poyet into the loan market.
Poyet told seagulls.co.uk, “Macca's injury looks like it could be serious. We will do the last test tomorrow but it looks like it could be a serious Achilles injury and it could be the rest of the season or up to two or three months out.
“That injury changes a lot; I like to have four strikers at least but we have had three recently and now we have two, but Ashley Barnes was not even on the bench through illness.
“I absolutely hate the loan market but I might have to use it now. I’m not going to be so naïve not to use it so now we will have to look for a striker. But we need to be a little bit lucky and find someone within our price range. It has got to work for us, for the other club and for the player. I will be on the phone all morning tomorrow.”
The stalemate at Ashton Gate will be a forgettable game for the Albion fans but Poyet was pleased with a valuable point following a turbulent few days which affected his team selection.
“It’s difficult to talk about the game because we have to analyse the whole thing. There were too many things that happened during the last few days and they affected the players on the pitch.
“Ashley was going to be playing but he woke up ill, then felt better this afternoon but then got worse again so he could not be involved. Then we wanted to play a certain way with Macca, but he got his injury. We were hoping to rest one or two of the players but we couldn’t do that either.
“It was one of those games where we just wanted to take something and I’m not going to analyse it anymore. We are happy to take a point.
“The key is the point and that’s what we said at half-time. When it’s not our day and nothing is going for us we have to get something from it. We could not pass the ball well so we had to go back to the basics.
“We needed to defend and we did that well. If I analyse everything that’s happened over the last few days it’s a great point because we did not go into the game with the best conditions. I never like the players to have excuses but they had a few today.”
Original article
Albion’s top scorer was recalled to the starting line-up for the first time in a month and his injury is likely to force Poyet into the loan market.
Poyet told seagulls.co.uk, “Macca's injury looks like it could be serious. We will do the last test tomorrow but it looks like it could be a serious Achilles injury and it could be the rest of the season or up to two or three months out.
“That injury changes a lot; I like to have four strikers at least but we have had three recently and now we have two, but Ashley Barnes was not even on the bench through illness.
“I absolutely hate the loan market but I might have to use it now. I’m not going to be so naïve not to use it so now we will have to look for a striker. But we need to be a little bit lucky and find someone within our price range. It has got to work for us, for the other club and for the player. I will be on the phone all morning tomorrow.”
The stalemate at Ashton Gate will be a forgettable game for the Albion fans but Poyet was pleased with a valuable point following a turbulent few days which affected his team selection.
“It’s difficult to talk about the game because we have to analyse the whole thing. There were too many things that happened during the last few days and they affected the players on the pitch.
“Ashley was going to be playing but he woke up ill, then felt better this afternoon but then got worse again so he could not be involved. Then we wanted to play a certain way with Macca, but he got his injury. We were hoping to rest one or two of the players but we couldn’t do that either.
“It was one of those games where we just wanted to take something and I’m not going to analyse it anymore. We are happy to take a point.
“The key is the point and that’s what we said at half-time. When it’s not our day and nothing is going for us we have to get something from it. We could not pass the ball well so we had to go back to the basics.
“We needed to defend and we did that well. If I analyse everything that’s happened over the last few days it’s a great point because we did not go into the game with the best conditions. I never like the players to have excuses but they had a few today.”
Original article