SHEFFIELD Wednesday manager Henrik Pedersen has confirmed that Di’Shon Bernard will miss Saturday’s League One derby at Doncaster Rovers – but he allayed fears of a lay-off given his injury history.
Bernard, who made his return after 15 months out in the recent derby at Huddersfield Town, came off early on in Tuesday’s loss at Notts County – in just his third comeback game.
Pedersen said: "We hope and believe that he can train next week again.
"I cannot explain exactly what it is, but it was positive, so we expect him to be a part of the training next week.
"There was concern in the whole squad and for all of us I think and by all the fans (at Notts County) that now he was finally back on the pitch and started to play really, really well.
"So it was a sad moment and that's why we are very happy that there was nothing bad.
"And we expect him to be on the pitch again next week.
" In this case, it was the other knee. It was not his ‘bad’ knee. And we evaluate every day with this because when you have been out for so long time, then how much can you push a player?
"But I think we have been really good in this part for this, to load him from games, but also load him from training.
"And this situation has nothing with load. It was a kick and he had to stop. So nothing with his injury at all."
Proving further injury updates ahead of the Rovers test, Pedersen, who will be without suspended duo Callum Slattery and Jamal Lowe – the latter starts a three-match ban, added: “(Joe) Lumley is still not on the training pitch. (Sil) Swinkels has trained the whole week, so it's positive.
"(Ricardo) Santos starts slowly now, but it will also take a little bit of time still.
"Jordi (Liongola) is training with full power on the pitch and he's part of some of the exercises.
"Louie (Barry) is training really, really well and he also had some few finishing today. And he is going in the right direction.
"George Brown has been a part of a session this week and he looked really good in the session, but he's still very, very early in relation to play games, but has trained really well. Max Lowe has also trained.”