![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1_Josh-Stokes-Bristol-City.jpg\")
Bristol City midfielder Josh Stokes at Ashton Gate(Image: Rogan Thomas\/Bristol City)<\/p>\nJosh Stokes hasn’t featured in each of Bristol City’s last two friendly fixturesBristol City midfielder Josh Stokes at Ashton Gate(Image: Rogan Thomas\/Bristol City)<\/p>\n
Gerhard Struber has provided an update on the fitness of Josh Stokes following Bristol City<\/a>\u2019s draw with Cheltenham Town, confirming that he is hopeful he will return to first-team training early next week.<\/p>\n Stokes was left out of the Robins\u2019 squad to take on Newport County at the High Performance Centre on Tuesday, alongside Marcus McGuane, who has since joined Huddersfield Town, and was similarly absent from Friday night\u2019s draw<\/a> against Michael Flynn\u2019s side.<\/p>\n Supporters have been quick to question just why the 21-year-old is yet to feature under Struber this summer, especially after he put pen to paper on a new three-year deal a little over a month ago following a successful loan spell with Cambridge United<\/a>. Some had floated the idea of another loan switch, while others have mooted a potential injury.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Gerhard Struber sheds light on Bristol City’s transfer stance after Robins draw with Cheltenham<\/a>READ MORE: Report: Bristol City held by Cheltenham Town in first pre-season clash of double-header weekend<\/a><\/p>\n Although the latter has proven to be correct, Struber is adamant that the attacking midfielder\u2019s issue is nothing major and is expecting to have him involved in training in the lead-up to next weekend\u2019s friendly against Real Valladolid at Ashton Gate.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is not a big thing with Josh,\u201d the head coach told Bristol Live<\/a> following Friday night\u2019s draw at The EV Charging Points Stadium. \u201cHe will be back next week.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll try to bring him back next week, and I hope on Tuesday he can train with the team and with the football. Everything is, right now, good with him.\u201d<\/p>\n With another game to come this weekend against Plymouth Argyle at Home Park, Struber has split his squad into two groups for the two matches. Barring a handful of senior players, namely Mark Sykes, Rob Dickie, Sam Bell, Joe Lumley, Haydon Roberts<\/a>, and Fally Mayulu, the majority of the squad that took to the field against Cheltenham was made up of young players and academy prospects.<\/p>\n Neither Jason Knight nor Adam Randell, who started Tuesday\u2019s win over Newport County, made the trip up the M5 to Gloucestershire. The pair\u2019s absence, partnered with the fact both Joe Williams and Max Bird are continuining their recovery from injury, allowed young midfielders Adam Murphy<\/a> and Ruebin Sheppard to start in the Reds\u2019 engine room on Friday evening.<\/p>\n Murphy played the full 90 minutes and even came close to scoring when only a deflection denied him in the second half, while Sheppard went about his business smartly before being replaced by Louie Derrick moments after the hour mark.<\/p>\n Join Bristol City Live’s Whatsapp community for all the biggest Bristol City stories sent straight to your phone<\/strong><\/p>\n Bristol City Live<\/a> is now on WhatsApp and we want you to join our community.<\/p>\n Through the app, we\u2019ll send the Bristol City news, live match coverage, team news, transfers, fixtures, analysis and more straight to your phone.<\/p>\n To join our community you need to already have WhatsApp. All you need to do is click this link and select \u2018Join Community\u2019.<\/a><\/p>\n No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Bristol Live<\/a> team.<\/p>\n We also treat community members to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. If you don\u2019t like our community, you can check out at any time you like.<\/p>\n To leave our community, click on the name at the top of your screen and choose \u2018Exit group\u2019.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re curious, you can read our Privacy Notice.<\/a><\/p>\n Click here to join our WhatsApp community.<\/a><\/p>\n Of course, given the competition for places in the middle of the park heading into the new season, it is unclear just how much first-team football both youngsters will play over the coming months. However, the Reds\u2019 head coach has been impressed by what he has seen from the pair so far.<\/p>\n \u201cI think, of course, Adam is the whole time with us and I\u2019m not surprised that he can bring a good performance,\u201d Struber explained. \u201cAt the same time, he has some to-dos in dynamic moments to be a little bit cleaner, but we are right now happy with his improvements, how he worked, and also his engagement and commitment.<\/p>\n \u201cHe is on the field to do and give his best. With Ruebin, he\u2019s a very young kid. The last few days, he trained a little bit with us and right now he gets the chance today.\u201d<\/p>\n After Saturday\u2019s friendly with Argyle, Struber\u2019s players will have one more chance to stake their claim for a starting place on the first day of the season when they welcome Real Valladolid<\/a> to BS3 next weekend.<\/p>\n The clash with the Spanish second tier side will be the Robins\u2019 final friendly of the summer before they kick-off the new campaign with a repeat of last season\u2019s play-off semi-final, away to Sheffield United at Bramall Lane.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Gerhard Struber details Bristol City’s ‘to-do list’ after Robins’ friendly draw with Cheltenham<\/a>READ MORE: Cheltenham Town 0-0 Bristol City recap: Struber’s Robins held to draw in friendly clash<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josh Stokes hasn’t featured in each of Bristol City’s last two friendly fixturesBristol City midfielder Josh Stokes at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,2686,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-292839","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-bristol-city-fc","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114918626660162694","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/0_WhatsApp-Phone.jpg\")
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