Mark Hughes is pretty adamant that there is no way that Robinho should play any role in Brazil’s back to back International Friendlies after the 25 year old has missed Manchester City’s last 11 matches through an ankle injury.
Via Guardian
Robinho has missed City’s last 11 games, dating back to a Carling Cup tie at Crystal Palace on 27 August.
When he made the 45-minute flight to Qatar on Wednesday night it was supposed to be only the briefest of visits, City’s recommendation being that the Brazilians assess his injury and then allow him to rejoin the rest of Hughes’s squad in Abu Dhabi yesterday morning to continue his rehabilitation with the club’s fitness staff.
Instead, the most expensive player in English football has stayed in Doha and, to the intense irritation of his club, Brazil will continue to defy City by including him in their travelling party for a friendly in Oman on Tuesday. The Brazilian football federation have confirmed there is a possibility of him playing.
An alarmed Hughes believes the 25-year-old has only an outside chance of being involved in City’s next league match, at Liverpool tomorrow week, and the manager was struggling to remain diplomatic when he spoke after City’s defeat.
“We wanted them [Brazil] to know in no uncertain terms that we felt it was very much a risk if Robi were involved in either of the two games,” Hughes said. “He has had one training session in eight to 10 weeks so to think he would be ready for a full international against England, I would suggest that would be foolhardy.”
Hughes went on to say that he thought an agreement had been struck between the two sets of medical staff whereby Robinho would train with the rest of the Brazil squad but not play. “That’s our understanding of it and we certainly don’t expect him to play any part on Saturday or Tuesday,” he said.
Informed that Brazil were saying there were no conditions in place, he replied: “I’m not aware [of that]. I can give you only what our doctor has been told.”
City’s medical staff had recommended that Robinho needed another two weeks of fitness work before he could be considered ready to return, but the former Real Madrid player was asked to take part in an extensive training session on the Al Gharafa Sports Club pitch and there were suggestions from the Brazilian end that they did not entirely trust the prognosis of the club doctors.
“Whether he’ll play this game [against England] or next week we are taking day by day,” Rodrigo Piva, the Brazil team spokesman, said. “He’ll be assessed again tomorrow [Friday]. We know City want him with them but the situation for us is that we have only three games before the World Cup so we need Robinho here.
“This is a chance for the coach to talk to the players, to create the right ambience and to discuss preparations for next summer. We need him [Robinho] with us. We don’t need permission from City to play him but we will keep talking to them.”
