Not good news, but not bad news either.
That’s my takeaway when it comes to the fitness of Fulham midfielder Mario Lemina as his international boss broke down his status. The 27-year-old was left out of Fulham’s most recent game with West Ham United, but speaking to L’Union (translated by SportWitness), Gabon manager Patrice Neveu gave a brief injury update on the midfielder, indicating that things aren’t looking quite so bad:
“As I feared, Mario Lemina won’t be in the squad. His pain, despite positive MRI results, came back. Not wanting to take any risks, Fulham’s coach, Scott Parker, didn’t call him up on Saturday against West Ham. He’s therefore a forfeit for the double matchup Gabon-Gambia on the 12th and 16th of November”.
Have you been impressed with Lemina this season?
Yes
No
So by the sounds of it, it looks as if it’s just a precautionary measure, so hopefully he’ll be right as rain when the international break is over.
If you take a look at his statistics within the team, he hasn’t been the most productive of players for us, not really shining in many categories, but the fact he did manage to play in our last three games before the match against West Ham would seem to indicate that Scott Parker is showing more and more faith in him as the season goes on.
And the more he does play, the more comfortable he’ll be with the system and perhaps drag those numbers up, because when you take a look at his profile and most notably his strengths (tackling and intercepting the ball), you can tell that he’s someone we’re probably going to need throughout the season.
What about you? Do you think Lemina can play a big part in how we play this season?