Marvin Ducksch has flown home from Birmingham City's pre-season training camp in Portugal after sustaining an injury that will sideline him for several weeks. The 32-year-old German forward was absent from training at Blues' base in Lagos on Thursday morning and has returned to the club's Henley-in-Arden facility for assessment and treatment.
Chris Davies confirms Ducksch injury
Blues manager Chris Davies told BirminghamLive: 'Marvin is going to be a few weeks. He's picked something up out here and we've had to send him home to get him scanned. It looks like it's going to be a few weeks before he's back training.' Ducksch, who has been linked with a summer exit, joins right-back Ethan Laird in returning to England. Laird, who missed five months last season, worked with his own fitness coach in the United States alongside ex-Blues loanee Teden Mengi but picked up a problem shortly before returning.
Davies added: 'Ethan I hope will train at some point next week but that will be two-and-a-half weeks of pre-season missed, sadly because I think he was working hard in the summer but he picked up a niggle right at the end of his off-season.'
Fry and Stansfield not risked for friendly
New signing Dael Fry and Jay Stansfield have trained in Portugal but will not feature in Friday's first friendly against Huddersfield Town due to missing the first week of pre-season. 'They won't play,' confirmed Davies. 'Dael is just a week behind everyone and we're cautious. It's a new training intensity, we don't want to throw him in and lose him for six weeks and think, 'What have we done there?' We're holding him back and it's the same with Jay. Jay is a week behind so there's no need to risk it tomorrow.'
Blues will rely on a clutch of youngsters to make up numbers against Huddersfield. 'We're a little bit lighter on bodies than is ideal because Ethan is not with us, Marvin's picked up a knock and that's knocked our numbers a bit,' Davies concluded.
