Gerhard Struber and Bristol City are set to be boosted by the return of three players from injury when they host Swansea City at Ashton GateBristol City have had Jason Knight, Cam Pring, Ross McCrorie and Neto Borges in training this week(Image: Getty Images and EFL)

Bristol City are set to be boosted by the return of Jason Knight, Cam Pring, and Neto Borges for their meeting with Swansea City, Gerhard Struber has confirmed, with Ross McCrorie also expected to be available for selection after missing Scotland’s November fixtures.

The Robins welcome the currently managerless Swans to Ashton Gate on Saturday afternoon for what will be their first game after the November international break. After 15 games, Swansea find themselves 18th in the Championship table, just seven points clear of the relegation zone and six adrift of Struber’s side.

City, with a little under a third of the season played, sit eighth in the table, just two points outside of the play-off places. Despite having as many as 10 first-team players sidelined by injury prior to the international break, the Reds have managed to keep the pace with those above them in the battle for the top six.

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Now, after two weeks with no competitive football, a couple of those 10 recent absentees are set to return against the Swans. Knight, who sustained a groin issue in September, and Pring, who is yet to feature under Struber after undergoing ankle surgery in pre-season, have both been training over the international break.

“We have good news,” the head coach smiled in his pre-match press conference at the High Performance Centre. “Knighty is back, Pringy is back. [They’ve had] really good training sessions with us, so they are on the roster on the weekend.

“With all the other injured players, it looks also a little bit brighter, so we have some players [that] who are very close to jump back, and we hope in the next few weeks, we [will] have, of course, a bigger selection in the end.”

When asked if Pring would need to be managed carefully, Struber added, “Yes. We have, the last few months, many, many topics with re-injuries, and right now, I think we learn about it and we have to bring the boys, with the right time, back on the field with the right load.

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“With Knighty – Jason Knight – and Pringy – Cameron Pring – it looks really good and [it] was also really good to see him on the field live. I’ve had not so many sessions with him right now until I’m here, the coach, but what I could see from him is a very interesting player, high dynamic, a football mindset that I like.

“It’s very good to see him back.”

Outside of Knight and Pring, City will still have to wait a little bit longer for some of their other longer-term absentees to return.

The Reds confirmed in a statement shared over the international break that both Joe Williams and Luke McNally will be ruled out until the new year, whilst Rob Atkinson and Max Bird are expected to return in December, with the timeframe placed on the former’s recovery set for the Christmas period.

Naturally, Williams and McNally are disappointed and frustrated to see their respective spells on the sidelines stretched further than was initially anticipated. While it will be a blow for the Robins to be without both players over the festive period, full-backs McCrorie and Borges are ready and able to take to the field against the Swans, having been afforded extra recovery time over the November break, and Mark Sykes shouldn’t be too far behind.

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“Ross looks really good,” Struber explained. “He’s available on the weekend. With Syksey, we have to wait a little bit; he’s not ready on the weekend, but [it] looks really good for the Wrexham game.

“Neto, he’s back. He looks good; he trained all the sessions in the last days and looks really good to be involved in the game on Saturday.”

On Williams and McNally, the City boss added, “For them, it’s really difficult. We do everything so that we can support both players on a really good level and do everything [so] that in the end they come back as soon as possible.

“They had, in the end, big injuries that were also connected with big surgeries, so we have to do everything [so] that they come back in the right timeframe and stay in the end, stable on the field. I think in the end, we need patience.

“We have to be patient in this direction and realise [that] they had big injuries.”

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