Watford Head Coach Slaven Bilić confirmed that midfielder Hamza Choudhury has been training and is in contention for Saturday’s trip to Wigan Athletic (October 29, 3pm) despite coming off with a minor injury in last Sunday’s 4-0 win over Luton Town.
Suffering a knock near his hip, Choudhury spoke to the Head Coach about the injury, and feels fit to play against the Latics.
“I spoke to him yesterday,” recounted Bilić. “He didn’t train with us in these past few days but he’s been training on the pitch. He told me he feels good and I’m expecting him to train today. He’s very important for us, he gives us the balance, determination, energy and impulse, and he should be okay for tomorrow.”
Striker Keinan Davis left the field with an injury of his own during the victory last weekend and won’t be fit for the journey north, but will likely only spend one game on the sidelines.
“It’s a muscle near the hip, and it’s not an injury I’m told is a big one,” the Head Coach continued. “It’s a week, a maximum of 10 days, so we expect him back on Wednesday.”
Club captain Tom Cleverley had an operation on a persistent Achilles problem last week, having tried to get over the problem without the need for surgery.
“He’s going to be out a long time,” confirmed Bilić of the experienced midfielder, who now begins a personalised rehab programme.
Bilić will have a handful of returning players available for selection in the coming weeks. Defenders Francisco Sierralta, Kortney Hause and Christian Kabasele are all nearing a comeback, whilst midfielder Tom Dele-Bashiru builds up fitness.
Craig Cathcart, who featured in wins over Norwich City and Luton Town, played through some pain in parts of the matches, and may be available to Bilić at the DW Stadium.
“Craig made an effort to play against Norwich and Luton and we knew that it would be a risk for him to play two games in three or four days,” recalled the Croatian.
“He was very brave and he committed himself to the service of the club which is great from him, and he helped us a lot. He didn’t train with us this week and he is supposed to train today, hopefully we receive some good signals from him and I hope he is available tomorrow.
“We’ve been hit extremely hard in that department (centre-back); they are slowly coming back to training. Sierralta has trained with us all week, Hause is getting better, Kabasele trained yesterday so they’re all coming back together. It’s good to have them back, and Tom Dele is getting better. He needs a few games to get back to match fitness and Mario Gaspar is back. We can see the bright days, the guys are coming back.”
