Pompey investigate spate of injuries

Kenny Jackett revealed the Blues have looked to see if there’s anything they can do to avoid having the number of players they currently have sidelined.

Gareth Evans and Brett Pitman both have hamstring problems with Danny Rose (broken leg), Stephen Henderson (thigh) and Stuart O’Keefe (groin) out for the season.

Jackett said: ‘There’s general assessments of how they are and how much they’ve played when they come in.

‘Are you risking anything by playing them all the time or straight away in a period of five games in 15 days?

‘I get players have to be robust, but you can also be quite clever and be one step ahead of the situation.

‘So there’s things like warm-ups, warm-downs and players’ capacity to play x amount of games as a season to look at.’

Jackett explained Evans and Pitman’s hamstring injuries were given further inspection with both men missing with the same issue.

He said: ‘For Evans and Pitman, both getting hamstrings at the same time is a frustrating one - but they’re game-related.

‘They’re two very experienced professionals so, I don’t think it will be lack of individual preparation by them.

‘Ultimately it goes down to the player individually, so you always work and see if any of the injuries could’ve been avoided.

‘It’s a new one for Gareth. It could be a build-up of games and maybe some mental pressure. That can happen with tension.

‘It’s all things you should be able to put up with, but it doesn’t stop you looking at training regimes, pitches and what have you.

‘It’s making sure you haven’t missed anything or any injuries could be avoided.’