Will Haji Wright be playing against Middlesbrough tonight? Latest injury update on Coventry City star - status of Jack Rudoni and Woolfenden
Coventry City will be without one of their key players tonight as the Championship number one take on second spot Middlesbrough.
Coventry City are preparing for another game without second highest scorer Haji Wright ahead. The Sky Blues will be looking for their tenth win in 11 Championship games and crucially, to extend their gap to ten points with Boro.
Middlesbrough are set to have Adi Viveash in caretaker charge for a third successive fixture while the club completes its move for Hammarby manager Kim Hellberg as its next permanent boss following the departure of Rob Edwards to Wolves. Frank Lampard's men travel to Teesside in the North East after Saturday's 3-2 comeback victory over West Bromwich Albion.
But they will face another tough test against a side who are so far unbeaten at their home stadium. Their key player Haji Wright is currently suffering a quadricep (thigh) muscle strain.
Here’s what has been said on him: “He’s got a small quad injury so he’ll be missing probably for the next couple of games. We’ll see how he goes. He got it out in America off the back of the second game. We think it might be up to two weeks. We hope it’s a low level quad.”
His return date could be early December, possibly for the trips to Ipswich (Dec 6) or Preston (Dec 9). Despite this, Jack Rudoni is back after a recovered calf injury and made a welcome return to the matchday squad at the weekend.
As for when he's likely to be fit enough to start a game, however, Lampard said: “He hasn’t had quite enough training minutes to really get him to start a game yet but it’s not far away. And so it was good process to get him out there for 10 minutes or so.
“We’ve just got to look after him in this first period coming back but we know what an important player he is for us. We’ve got results without him and that’s been great, but he’s clearly going to strengthen us if he can stay fit now.”
The centre-half Luke Woolfenden was missing from the matchday squad on Saturday against West Brom due to having suffered with a sickness bug in the days leading up to the match. However, he should be available for tonight’s match boosting the squad.