Charlton Athletic handed striker boost – as Igor Vetokele set to feature in squad for Fleetwood match

BY RICHARD CAWLEY

Igor Vetokele is set to return to Charlton Athletic’s squad for Saturday’s home game against Fleetwood Town.

The former FC Copenhagen man has been missing since suffering an ankle injury in the pre-season friendly against Welling United.

But Vetokele has resumed full training.

Charlton also confirmed that Jason Pearce, Tariqe Fosu and Ben Reeves are due to also join the main group from the start of next week.

“Igor will probably be involved at the weekend,” said Addicks caretaker boss Lee Bowyer. “Probably just on the bench.

“It depends how he does in the next couple of days, we’ll see how sharp he is looking. He’s been out a long time.

“Tariqe has been out a long time, Pearcey has been short – it is not such a worry. Reevesy was out after the second day of pre-season. They are not just going to come back and be flying. They have got to get back training with us, getting their sharpness.

“We need to try and get them some minutes and the cup games [EFL Trophy] will be handy.

“The players we have brought in have improved the squad and we have got all the lads to come back, slowly but surely we’re getting to the end of that. Our squad will be done by the end of the month and I’ll be over the moon with the squad I have.

“Once we get the injuries back we’ll be in a good position to just kick on then, with one or two additions through the door.

“We’ve had to be patient in those first few games and try and get what we can from them. But as much as we were down to the bare bones we went to Sunderland and were unlucky – they scored in injury-time. And it took a penalty on Tuesday to beat us. They are two teams who are going to be up there and we outplayed them both.

“We were much better than Peterborough the other night.”

IMAGE BY PAUL EDWARDS