Exeter City v Cambridge United: Zeno Ibsen Rossi to miss trip to Devon but Brandon Njoku, Emmanuel Longelo and Sullay Kaikai should all feature
Cambridge United’s injury problems are showing little sign of abating ahead of tomorrow’s trip to Exeter City with confirmation that Zeno Ibsen Rossi will miss the trip to Devon.
For the last couple of weeks the centre-back has been managing a back problem that forced him to pull out of the squad during the warm-up of Tuesday night’s 1-0 defeat to Rotherham United.
The 23-year-old has since undergone a scan to determine the extent of the damage and while the result is not currently known, he will play no part in the League One fixture at St James Park this weekend.
As well as Ibsen Rossi, the likes of Josh Stokes, Shayne Lavery, Kell Watts, Gary Gardner, George Thomas, Mamadou Jobe and Dan Barton will all be absent for the Exeter clash.
In brighter news, young striker Brandon Njoku should be fit to feature despite limping off late on against Rotherham, while both Emmanuel Longelo and Sullay Kaikai have returned to training after missing out during the week because of illness.
The hosting Grecians have enjoyed a solid start to the 2024/25 campaign, picking up 13 points from their opening eight fixtures to sit 10th.
And Monk, who has insisted that he is not fretting about his future despite a run of 17 games without a victory, believes the way that this weekend’s opponents operate on and off the pitch is a ‘good benchmark’ for Cambridge.
He added: “It will be a totally different game (to Tuesday). They’re a good benchmark in a sense of the style of football we’re trying to implement here.
“They’ve done that over a number of years now and you’ve seen how that’s been built up. They sell players then they bring players through and also how well they recruit – they’ve done that successfully over a number of years now.
“They’re further down the line than we are in terms of the way they’re playing and they’ve had a very good start. We know that, but we’re just trying to work our wait of our situation and give ourselves the best chance of getting a building block.
“Tuesday should have been one for sure but there’s no feeling sorry for ourselves. We have to dust ourselves down and take what positives we can get out of there.”