Ok full quotes
Have Van de Ven and Romero suffered setbacks or are you just being cautious with them?
It is not either. With Micky we made a decision, and I was certainly the catalyst of that, to just have a look at exactly beyond the injury how we can get him back in a good spot. He is doing some different things and working with some different people itās not as much about the injury as about the mechanics of him because we want him back and we want him back in a real good space. He is training and feels really good. We are still confident his return is imminent but we want to make sure we get it right.
With Romero it has been a healing issue. The injury hadnāt healed up as quickly as we thought it would which, again, we could have pushed him and risked it but we have waited to give him a bit more time. We will get some clear indication as to his healing and depending on that his return could be imminent as well.
Can you be more specific with Romero and Van de Ven?
No, mate because I am not a doctor and also as I keep saying, there is a barrier you canāt cross when you are talking about people whether that is injuries or medically. Unless you want to call me a liar, what I am saying is both of them are training. There is evidence of that if you want that. Both of them are in a good place in terms of their recovery. Different reasons weāve held both back and again once they are right, theyāll be in
I'm not calling you a liar, but from the outside, it looks like all or nothing for Europa League, are you saving them for that?
No and weāre not all or nothing on anything. We still want to progress in the league. Weāre not happy with the position weāre in. There are still significant games. Itās not like there is a few games to go. There is still a lot of football to be played in the league and we want to address our league position and finish the season strong. Alongside that obviously the Europa League now is a great focus for us with us being out of the other cups, but weāre not saving anyone for anything because ultimately what I want is both Micky and Romero have had disrupted seasons in that theyāve got injured, come back and got injured again and I donāt want the same scenario.
You know whilst it may look with Micky like we had a false start with the Elfsborg thing, I think it gave us an indication of where he is at. We could have pushed on absolutely and we could have pushed on with Romero, but my view is letās get them back and get them back right until the end of the season so we give them a chance as well to make a contribution to hopefully a strong finish for us