Galbraith, Tchamadeu, Ampah - Stoke City injury news ahead of season opener
· Peter Smith · 2026-08-05 · nguồn gốc
Junior Tchamadeu is scheduled to resume full training after the opening game of the league season.
The Stoke City right-back has missed a chunk of pre-season after suffering a hamstring injury in a friendly against Crewe. He had been sidelined with a similar injury in the second half of last season and it will be a task for Stoke’s revamped medical team to make sure he gives himself the best chance as possible to remain available as much as possible.
Left-back Aaron Cresswell is expected to be on the sidelines for an extended period after taking a crunching blow on his knee in training on a camp in Austria.
January arrival Ato Ampah, who missed the second half of last season with a toe injury, has missed part of pre-season too after suffering a tweak to “a few fibres”. He has been stepping up his work and should join back in at a similar time to Tchamadeu.
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New boy Ethan Galbraith is already training after being rested as a precaution through the last couple of friendlies.
Sporting director Jon Walters said: “Cressy took a pretty bad impact in Austria on his knee. He’s not going to be a quick one. Someone went right into his kneecap. It’s going to be a little while and it’s an unfortunate one. It was a really long sliding tackle and a stud went right into his kneecap, so that’s not great.
“Junior and Ato are back on the grass and they’ll be training post-Swansea, I think is what we’re aiming for. Once they’re back training you’re up to speed quite quickly.
“Junior had a set-back again which we need to get right because he wants to progress and we want to progress as a team. He’s our right-back and as a player he needs to get on top of that. We will do that together. A change in staff will hopefully do that.
“Ato has been really unfortunate. Sometimes this happens when you sign a player. You’re told he’s got this and it’s going to be a couple of weeks and it ends up being a lot longer waiting for that to heal, which it did. Then he was in a stretch position and tweaked a few fibres. But he’s back on the grass today.
“Ethan was a strange one. He’s training now. The physio said he’d only seen one like it before. It was a really innocuous thing and could have just been a bruise. He took a few whacks in the Crewe game then took a few whacks in exactly the same position in the Sheffield Wednesday game in the belly of the muscle.
“It is something that’s bled out, small and innocuous but because of last year and Oldham is almost our last game of our pre-season schedule. It’s the start of the season but if you look at last year we had six games and we’re going into the sixth game and there was no need to take chance, keep him on the grass and do all the work the team do and introduce him back in. He was training on Tuesday as a floater.
“We’re in a good place. I really hate muscle injuries. If there’s a muscle or tendon injury you want to avoid them if possible. We have talked about training days and loading and injuries were a part of our downfall last year that we need to get right.
“Players like Ethan coming in, you’ve got to get to know them as physios and sports science. What are they like with injuries? Can they push through them? Is it something small, something big? They’ve got to learn about the players too.”
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