'He hasn't trained' – Bournemouth boss makes injury admission ahead of Brighton
Injury boost for Bournemouth ahead of their trip to Brighton
Bournemouth club-record signing Evanilson has fully recovered from a broken metatarsal and could potentially start Tuesday evening’s Premier League game at Brighton.
However, Cherries boss Andoni Iraola is unsure how many minutes the striker will be able to manage at the Amex Stadium due to a lack of training.
Brazil international Evanilson, who cost an initial £31.7million from Porto last summer, missed seven games after fracturing his foot during his side’s 1-0 win over Everton on January 4.
The 25-year-old was an unused substitute for Saturday’s 1-0 home loss to Wolves and may need to be eased back into first-team action.
“With Eva, the problem is not his injury, it’s that he hasn’t trained,” Iraola told a press conference.
“He has recovered from the injury but when you have a bone injury, it’s not like other injuries that you can train, you can run, you can sprint, you can do a lot of things; with the foot injury on the bone, you have to wait until it heals.
“You have to just keep it there for two or three weeks with the boot, so he has lost a lot of training.
“Probably it’s a matter more of the shape he’s in right now than the proper injury.
“He could start; the problem is I don’t know how much he would last because he lacks the training days, the process you normally go through.
“Normally with other injuries it’s more smooth. They do a little bit more, a little bit more, they start with the group.
“We’ve used Eva once (in training), we’ve thought, ‘OK, the foot is in a good place, now we can start doing things’, but this period has been really small.”
With Evanilson watching from the bench, Bournemouth slipped to a 1-0 loss to relegation-threatened Wolves following a 31st-minute red card for defender Illia Zabarnyi.
Iraola, who is awaiting the outcome of an appeal to determine whether Zabarnyi will serve a suspension for his tackle on Rayan Ait-Nouri, played down concerns about the quick turnaround following the extra physical demands required at the weekend.
“We had a very big effort, the physical stats of the game are incredible from our players, the ones who finished the game,” said the Spaniard.
“We had to make an extra effort because you are playing one down and you want to go for the game.
Sixth-placed Bournemouth are just a point off the Champions League spots, while Brighton are three positions and three points further back.
Iraola regards Fabian Hurzeler’s Seagulls as one of the division’s top sides and is braced for a “very, very demanding game” as the battle for European qualification intensifies.
“For me, Brighton are one of the best teams of the league, I have no doubts,” he said.
“They have a very good squad, not only the starting 11, they have options in every position.
“I think they will be fighting for the European places until the end. It’s a very, very demanding game.”