Fresh injury concern for Peterborough United summer signing
Rio Adebisi’s injury-hit season could have taken another turn for the worse.
The left back, who was an ever-present for Crewe last season, only made his Posh debut on Friday (December 20) at Stockport after missing the whole campaign with a knee injury, but he was unable to feature in the Boxing Day defeat at Mansfield. After the match, Posh boss Darren Ferguson confirmed this was because of an ongoing issue with the knee.
The 24-year-old will be sent for a scan on Friday to assess the extent of the problem, which was felt in training after his 13-minute substitute appearance at Stockport.
Ferguson said: “We have a scan tomorrow. His knee didn’t feel right today so we will get him a scan to give us a good idea of where he is at. It was just a reaction to the training sessions. I don’t think the swelling is too bad so it is hopefully a precautionary thing but he just didn’t feel right today. That’s the reason why he wasn’t involved. When we get the results we will see if we have to change his plan.”
Due to Adebisi’s absence, Jack Sparkes returned to the Posh bench, but teenager Harley Mills made his second consecutive League One start in the 3-0 defeat at the hands of the rampant Stags.
Posh also changed both centre halves from Friday’s defeat at Stockport, lining up George Nevett and Jadel Katongo in place of Oscar Wallin and Emmanuel Fernandez. Wallin dropped to the bench. but Fernandez was left out entirely. Fernandez was left out due to illness but Ferguson confirmed he would not have been included even if he was available to play.
Ferguson added: “Manny has played in every game and I have to look at the amount of goals we are conceding. They’re not all just on Manny clearly but I’ve got to keep trying different things with the personnel I’ve got. As it turned out, Manny was ill, so he wasn’t in the squad, but he wasn’t going to be in the squad anyway because he needed a break.
"Oscar has had a break and he was on the bench and I went with Jadel and George. They deserved a chance together, they haven’t played together. I had to take a look at things after the defence after Stockport. It’s slightly irrelevant the personnel when you have a defeat of this manner. It’s nothing to do with systems, shapes or tactics. It’s to do with good old fashioned stuff of being committed enough to try and stop the other team scoring. It could have been a lot more.”