Sam Ricketts: Shrewsbury Town players had coronavirus symptoms
Boss Sam Ricketts has revealed some members of his Shrewsbury Town squad have had coronavirus symptoms – but none have been seriously ill.
Town’s squad are entering their fourth week away from the Sundorne Castle training ground with lockdown set to be continued.
With the EFL having pencilled in a mid-May return date to training for all of its players, Ricketts revealed that no members of the Salop squad have required serious medical attention owing to Covid-19.
Players up and down the country have at times over the past month publicly revealed the illness – Town’s former defender James Bolton was one of four Portsmouth players to test positive for the illness.
Ricketts said: “Like anywhere, there are an awful lot of people with symptoms.
“Look at the Pompey lads who tested positive for it, but didn’t actually have symptoms at all.
“I’m sure there were some of our lads with symptoms and who had it – but maybe didn’t even know they had it.
“Some others might have had it but only with very minor symptoms and nothing too serious, no-one had severe medical attention.
“But there were a number of players who had symptoms of Covid-19.”
Ricketts explained that players were still continuing with individual training programmes during lockdown and that the club will look to ramp things up ahead of the return to training.
The boss detailed how players have been able to use the time to rest their bodies, recharge and – in some cases – recover from injuries.
Ollie Norburn is stepping up his rehab from a season-ending knee injury, but is now in ‘limbo’ as he awaits a post-op check-up on his progress.
Shaun Whalley and Conor McAleny have recovered from muscle injuries while Romain Vincelot is back from ground-breaking hip surgery.
Defender Aaron Pierre is still carrying the muscle problem that forced him out of Shrews’ last game, the late 3-2 home reverse to Oxford.
“Norbs is doing really, really well. He’s been really unfortunate that he can’t have face-to-face treatment,” the boss added.
“He’s been working really hard at home, very closely with the medical team on Facetime and the like.
“We’re at the point now where he needs to go for a check-up on his operation, but that obviously isn’t as easy as what it was.
“Is it even going to be possible? I’m not sure, to be honest possibly not. He’s doing very well, but we’re a bit of limbo as to how we can push on without any face-to-face medical help.”
