Report: Norwich City to play without important star due to injury

David Wagner plots Grant Hanley’s return to Norwich City.

Grant Hanley is nearing the end of his long-awaited return from a long-term injury for Norwich City, but David Wagner is still cautious.

City’s club captain has been sidelined since April after suffering a serious Achilles injury against Blackburn on Good Friday but returned to full team training earlier this week in a boost to Wagner.

There were initial fears that Hanley could be sidelined into the opening months of next year, but he is way ahead of schedule in his recovery.

Whilst he won’t be an option for Wagner’s squad in the short-term, the City boss is beginning to look forward to having Hanley among his defensive options in the coming weeks and months.

“He is back in training now since the start of the week. It’s great to see him back after six months. It’s been much quicker than we expected,” Wagner told the Pink Un.

“He will need some further weeks of team training, but his presence in the dressing room and the training pitch is great to see. It’s great to see him back in the group. We will rush nothing. His rehab and the steps back into team training went very well.

“Now we do exactly how they have done it in the past to progress as aggressively as we can but also with caution.

“He will need a few weeks and some games in the 21s because six months is quite a long time, but everything that we have seen so far has been just great.”

City’s manager also provided an update on injured strikers Ashley Barnes and Josh Sargent, revealing that the former could return sooner than thought.

“With Sarge, it is too early to predict anything serious, but it is still a timeline of Christmas and the New Year,” he went on to say.

“Barnesy is progressing well – maybe he can make the Cardiff game (November 11) before the international break, and this is something that could be a chance, even if it is a slight chance, and I would not rule him out.”

“If not, he’ll make it after the international break in November.” This is the goal. If he gets there sooner, that’s terrific, but we can’t honestly foresee that.”

Report: Norwich City to play without important star due to injury

David Wagner plots Grant Hanley’s return to Norwich City.

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