Brentford head coach Keith Andrews has provided an update on the fitness and availability of his squad ahead of Wednesday night’s Carabao Cup quarter-final against Manchester City at Etihad Stadium (7.30pm kick-off GMT), live on Sky Sports.
The Bees take on Pep Guardiola’s Cityzens in the second of three games inside six days, with a Premier League clash against Wolves at Molineux coming up on Saturday afternoon.
Frank Onyeka and Dango Ouattara have joined up with the Nigeria and Burkina Faso squads respectively ahead of the Africa Cup of Nations, while the trip to Manchester comes too soon for Reiss Nelson.
“Dango and Frank have gone to AFCON, so we’ll miss them both,” Andrews confirmed.
“Reiss won’t make this one. We’ve pushed him as much as we can. He’s not too far off but tomorrow comes a bit too soon, unfortunately.
“There definitely hasn’t been a setback, it was just a case of whether we felt it was right [to play Nelson against Leeds United]. We looked at his training loads and where he was at, and we felt it would have been a bit of a risk.
“We want to get him back and keep him back. He’s working hard really behind the scenes, so he shouldn’t be too much longer.”
Andrews added: “He just needs to find that rhythm in his game, that consistency of game time and training time, because the talent is obviously there in abundance.
“I’ve no doubt that he’ll be back pretty soon and will play a big part for us.”
The west Londoners made five changes for their last midweek game, a 2-0 loss against Premier League leaders Arsenal at Emirates Stadium.
Asked whether Andrews will utilise the squad on Wednesday night, Andrews continued: “Some players will play certain minutes to manage that a little bit.
“We’re taking the game as seriously as we should for a quarter-final of a cup competition, which is pretty special for us as a club and especially for me.
“I’ll pick the team that I think is right to absolutely compete to get the result that we want, to get through to the semi-final.”
