Ryan Mmaee has suffered a set-back just as he was about to return to Stoke City’s team for the first time in almost four months.

Mmaee missed the final few weeks of last season with a hamstring injury and has been working with the fitness staff on a knee injury through the summer. He returned to full training on Thursday and was hoping to make his comeback to play a part in last night’s friendly at Bolton Wanderers only to fall ill with tonsillitis on Sunday. He was still running a fever yesterday.

Steven Schumacher said: “Ryan is ill, he’s got tonsillitis. The doctor has gone to see him and has got him on antibiotics. It’s a real shame because the plan was to get him some minutes at Bolton. He wasn’t in on Sunday or Monday and he’s got a fever still three days later. It’s a bad bout on tonsillitis and he wasn’t available.

AS IT HAPPENED: Bolton 0 Stoke 1

“It’s not going to affect him going into Alkmaar and further forward but it’s a long season and he’ll get up to speed as quickly as he can.

“He hasn’t had much luck. He trained a couple of days and looked really sharp and he was enjoying being back out with the lads. It’s been a long time, he’d been working with the physios. He was back in with the group and trained Thursday and Friday, didn’t do anything on Saturday obviously while we were at Stockport but was planning for a session on Sunday only to fall ill. He couldn’t get out of bed.”