Mark Robins hopes to have his three remaining injured Coventry City players back in the next few days to join the returning Ellis Simms and Victor Torp, both of whom scored to help their side to a confidence boosting 3-0 win over Everton.
Simms sat out Saturday’s trip to Germany while Torp missed the previous three pre-season matches with a groin strain but both returned to face the Premier League side at the CBS Arena when they got on the scoresheet along with Ephron Mason-Clark on his home debut.
Robins revealed, however, that Mason-Clark is carrying a ‘knock’, albeit showing no signs of any issue as he got through an impressive 63 minutes before being withdrawn amid a number of second half changes.
Asked about star men Haji Wright and Ben Sheaf, both of whom are nursing ankle injuries, and winger Raphael Borges Rodrigues, who has been out with a thigh strain, the manager said: “They’re not far away really. We have just got to wait and see.
“They are all at the end of their injury recovery so hopefully we’ll see them in the coming days, so I am hoping they are going to be ready before the start of the season.”
Their return would certainly be a welcome boost ahead of Saturday’s home game against Bundesliga side Werder Bremen.
Asked if he feels his squad are on schedule with just over a week to go until the start of the new Championship season at Stoke, the City boss said: “We have still got a long way to go but this has been a really good step along the way.
“But I want us to use this to kick on and see if we can hit the ground running. What’s really encouraging is that when we made the changes there were some really talented players who came on to replace them, and that’s going to be needed, I think.
“There were some really lively cameos at the end from one or two, Jay Dasilva and Kasey Palmer looked really bright and contributed to the second goal. But I think in general it was a really pleasing game with plenty of confidence from everyone, which was good to see.”
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