Charlton boss Lee Bowyer: All of my players are at greater risk of injury – I can’t rotate them due to injury crisis

BY RICHARD CAWLEY

Lee Bowyer says that all of his Charlton Athletic players are at an increased risk of injury – and he has no option but to play them.

The Addicks will be missing striker Macauley Bonne after he injured his hamstring in the 2-1 loss at Derby County earlier this week.

And Charlton are already without Lewis Page, Sam Field, Jake Forster-Caskey, Tomer Hemed, Ben Amos, George Lapslie, Josh Cullen, Beram Kayal, Chuks Aneke, Erhun Oztumer, Jonny Williams and Jonathan Leko.

The Addicks are hoping to loan a player from a Premier League club today to boost their options for tomorrow’s Championship match at Swansea City.

Lyle Taylor is the only fit senior striker on their books.

“I guarantee if we’d started Macauley and Lyle at Derby that Lyle would’ve come off with the same injury,” said Bowyer. “He’s been out for 14 weeks and played two 90 minutes in four days. There’s no way he could’ve started that game.

“It’s frustrating. I want to start him but I just couldn’t. I knew what would happen.

“But they are all liable to have something happen. I need to rotate but I just can’t.

“Macca worked really, really hard against Bristol City and in an ideal world I’d have brought him out of the team as well. But I just can’t – there is no-one to change them over with. They all have to be playing and tomorrow [against Swansea] there is a chance of someone else getting injured. And there is nothing I can do about it.”

Bowyer is hoping to have Hemed, Williams and Aneke back in his training squad next week.

Bonne went for a scan yesterday on his left hamstring. The striker pulled up in the first half at Derby but stayed on until the interval.

“He’ll be out for a few weeks,” said Bowyer. “We were asking him what was up and he said: ‘I’m okay, I’m okay’ – then at half-time he said: ‘I think I’ve done my hamstring’.

“I don’t think he has done it before, so it was a new feeling to him.

“I thought he had done his hamstring with the way he was running and pulled up but then he seemed to be holding behind his knee, so you’re thinking maybe he has jarred his knee.

“If you do your hamstring then you know you’re done. But he kept saying he was okay, when he wasn’t okay. Maybe three times he said he was alright.”

PICTURES BY SEAN GOSLING