Cambridge United’s Bristol City loanee Josh Stokes to remain sidelined for League One clash at Northampton Town
Cambridge United will continue to be without Josh Stokes for tomorrow’s League One clash away at Northampton Town.
The playmaker, who is on loan from Bristol City, has missed United’s last nine league matches with a knee injury that he picked up during the 2-1 defeat at Mansfield Town on 14 September.
Stokes has recently returned to modified training, but the trip to Sixfields has come too soon, with next weekend’s home FA Cup tie against Wigan Athletic appearing to be the more likely date for his return.
“He’s not ready to contribute tomorrow,” said U’s head coach Garry Monk.
“We’re looking after Saturday to get him a good week of training and there’s a possibility for the Wigan game (that he may return). If not it will be the week after that.
“It depends how he’s looking because he’s not been in full training yet. Next week will be a good gauge for us but the difficultly with next week and the week after is because there are so many games there are a lot of preparation days and not a full day of training.
“We’ve prepared for those players that maybe don’t play as many minutes to stay on top of their fitness and for someone like Josh to try to get him to some sort of level.”
Long-term injury sufferers Dan Barton and Taylor Richards are on course to return to training early next month, while Gary Gardner is a couple of weeks behind those two.
Both Vicente Reyes (Chile) and Sullay Kaikai (Sierra Leone) have returned from international without any issues and are set to be in the squad that heads to Northampton.