By admin Tom Lees, a Huddersfield Town defender, will miss the final two games of his side’s Championship relegation struggle due to a knee injury.
The defender suffered the injury in last weekend’s 4-0 defeat to Swansea City, and Andre Breitenreiter confirmed at this afternoon’s news conference that the centre-back will be unable to play against Birmingham City tomorrow or Ipswich Town on the final day.
“Tom Lees, he has an MCL injury in his knee, so he is not available for the last two games,” the coach added.
The 33-year-old sustained the injury while attempting to prevent Swansea from scoring their second goal, after Town was caught off guard by Swans’ keeper Carl Rushworth’s long pass forward, which Ronald converted five minutes from time. Breitenreiter expressed dissatisfaction with some of his players, thinking that their lack of tracking back contributed to the centre-back’s injury.
“All the three defenders have the longest way to run backwards, because after the set-piece and the goalkeeper plays a long ball, and all the others stopped running,” the head coach of the Terriers remarked. “These three guys (Lees, Matty Pearson, and Michal Helik) ran for their life, and the rest of the teammates did not aid.
“Then Tom Lees sustained an injury because some players stopped running, which is unacceptable.” To be honest, I’ve never seen that before, and it’s not what a team should demonstrate.”
Breitenreiter chose to continue with the same lineup for the Swansea defeat, despite his side coming within a whisker of a much-needed victory at Bristol City the previous week. However, after being dissatisfied by last Saturday’s performance, the head coach has promised to make changes for tomorrow afternoon’s vital battle at home against the Blues.
Breitenreiter expects that individuals who are removed from the team will prove him wrong if they are given the opportunity to contribute as a substitute.
“I don’t want to say with the strongest mentality (those players will be selected), I try to find the right one (lineup) for this game,” the head coach was quoted as saying. “It’s evident that we need to make adjustments, and we already have one because of Tom Lees, and we’ll wait until Saturday to decide on the others.
“All the other players that maybe not start on Saturday can show when they come in that it was a bad decision, but I hope that then they are angry and they can show their best performance.”