Brentford manager, Keith Andrews has revealed that the club are being “careful” with Mikkel Damsgaard’s game time.
Andrews’ Bees head to Sunderland tomorrow (28 October) in a 7:45 GMT kick-off and the Irish gaffer has explained that Damsgaard is still dealing with pain in his right foot after he suffered a knock whilst on international duty for Denmark earlier this month and has played just 43 minutes across their last two matches.
“We’ve had to be careful with him. He evaded a pretty naughty tackle and we were pretty worried that that might be quite significant.
“He did well to avoid a serious injury, but he has had some pain, so we’ve had to tread carefully with how much he’s trained and how much contact he can have.
“Because it was right foot, he was still feeling it, but coming into the Hull game he started to be a little bit more pain free. He’s in a better place now but he’s obviously had a pretty disrupted last few weeks. He’s good to go.”
Rico Henry however is ruled out with a hip and quad injury which had kept him out for the last month since he featured in their Carabao Cup victory at Reading in the third round.
“He picked up a hip and quad injury a few weeks ago in training,” explained Andrews in his pre-match press conference and he added that the Jamaica international is sidelined until after November’s international break.
“Rico is going to be out for a period of weeks, probably until after the international break. It’s really unfortunate for him. He’s working hard to get back up to speed.”
Antoni Milambo meanwhile is sidelined with a knock suffered as he neared a return from an ACL injury, whilst Kaye Furo is ruled out due to a metatarsal injury.
“Antoni trained with the group on Saturday and he’s involved today, so he’s in and around it,” continued Andrews
“Kaye is doing really well. He’s been out of his boot for about a week to 10 days. He’s not on the grass yet but is making really good progress and is in good spirits.”
Josh Dasilva meanwhile has been absent with a hamstring injury but Andrews isn’t desperate to rush him back into first-team action.
“Josh, similarly to Antoni, was involved with the Saturday session before the Hull game. He’s building, was involved in a bigger session in midweek last week and is making really good strides.”
Brentford have reached the Quarter-Finals of the Carabao Cup in both of the last two seasons and Andrews has iterated that the competition is still of importance this season, even though his team are in the middle of three games in six days with a league clash at home to Nottingham Forest on 31 October to come.
“It’s as important of a game to us as Hull was and Nottingham Forest is on Saturday,” explained Andrews as he spoke of wanting another deep cup run.
“We got to the quarter-finals last year and if we come through this game then we’ll get to the same point. We want to go as far as we can go in this competition and there’s no reason that we can’t, but we’ve got a very difficult game tomorrow.”
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