Just In: Junho, Vidigal, Mmaee – Stoke City injury…

Junho, Vidigal, Mmaee – Stoke City injury news ahead of Watford trip.

Bae Junho has returned to training in hope he can be back in the Stoke City squad at Watford this weekend.

The 20-year-old playmaker sat out of Stoke’s final two friendlies of pre-season and the Championship curtain raiser against Coventry due to a thigh strain, which also meant he wasn’t risked at Carlisle in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday night.

But he has trained with the squad again today and will be assessed tomorrow before hopefully being given the green light to take part at Vicarage Road, even if that is just from the bench.

Steven Schumacher said at his press conference this afternoon: “Junho has trained today and he could potentially be involved at some stage this weekend if he comes through today’s session and tomorrow unscathed, which is good.”

A plan to build up The 20-year-old playmaker sat out of Stoke’s final two friendlies of pre-season and the Championship curtain raiser against Coventry due to a thigh strain’s minutes with a 45-minute run out for the under-21s against Leeds on Friday could change so that he could be in the squad at Watford.

Schumacher explained: “We had a chat about that. There’s another under-21s game next week so Ryan could potentially be in the squad for Saturday. We just need to manage his minutes and figure out what’s the best course of action.

I said on Tuesday night that he was going to play Friday but we’ll probably make a decision this afternoon about whether he comes with the first team this weekend and plays with the under-21s on Tuesday. We need to be careful with him but we also want to make sure we’re as strong as we possibly can be as well. We’ll have that conversation later when we finalise the squad.”

Andre Vidigal missed the Carlisle win with a sore foot and remains out while Jack Bonham will not be risked unless necessary as he recovers from a small wrist fracture. Enda Stevens and Michael Rose are hoping to return to training at the end of this month while Sam Gallagher continues to recover from a calf strain.