Jez was joined by Paul Hayward, head of medical, Lynne O'Riordan and the usual suspects. Richard Skirrow was there at the start but did not stay for the meeting itself.
The new kits were on display. The away is much darker than in the publicity shots and is definitely purple rather than lavender. The quality of both shirts is excellent, although I still dislike the collar on the home.
Firstly, Jez lamented the timing of the meeting as everything really depends on the outcome of our last two matches, which would make it difficult for him to answer certain questions as he would like as he couldn't risk things getting into the public domain and possibly unsettling players in the run-up to Burnley and Brighton. In hindsight, the meeting should have been brought forward two weeks or held immediately after the conclusion of the season. Jez' preference was for brought forward as he realised we would all want him shot if the outcome of the season was relegation.
The crowd is projected to be a minimum of 23k for the Burnley game, although Lynne hopes we may get a little more. The offer has worked well.
Jez reflected on the live blog from the last meeting. 10k people participated in the blog, and 5,475 questions were asked by the those in internet-land during the meeting. Jez noted that nobody on the board was upset by the press coverage. Steve Morgan had been very nervous beforehand but he feels that the event was a success overall. The consensus is that this might become an annual event, and the possibility of it being streamed so you can all see what is going on has been raised, although the board are unsure about that, as they feel they would need to be more cautious in what they said and dodge more questions than under the set-up used.
Steve Hayward did a Q&A and took the parliament through the current injury situation as much as confidentiality would allow.
SEB - the club clearly feel that the tackle was a very bad one. The fact that SEB's foot was planted did the damage and we just have to be patient with his recovery. Unlikely to be back for a while.
David Davis - a similar tackle but fortunately no break. Serious damage to the ankle ligaments and this will take some time to heal. Hopefully back for pre-season but no promises.
Dave Edwards - broken metatarsal (not caused by his footwear as he wears quite thick boots by modern player standards). Pre-season should be fine.
Ikeme - it's a freak injury and just has to heal. Pre-season
Wayne. There were very strict criteria before he was allowed back into training agreed between Wayne, his consultant and the medical team, and these were adhered too. It sounds like there may have been something loose in his knee which caused the second failure but the type of surgery attempted tends to have a 10% failure rate. The second surgery has seen the knee reinforced and this will cost him a very small amount of mobility in the knee (not enough to affect performance apparently) but should be very strong. Excellent progress and he will make pre-season although is likely to be about 6 weeks behind the rest of the group. He will then need slow integration and working his way back in via small reserve appearances before he can be fully ready.
Sako - DS, Paul Hayward, and the player will sit down and make the call about the Burnley game. Jez said that DS may have put the story of him being available into the media to keep Burnley guessing, but who knows.
Big George - back in full training and definitely ready for first team selection if needed.
Boukari - bizarre injury caused by a Sheffield Wednesday player standing on his heel just as he pushed off for a sprint. Basically, as I understand it there are two layers of muscle (one which covers explosive activity like sprints, and one which covers endurance) and the muscle has torn between these layers. This is very rare and they have tried everything to get it right without resorting to surgery, but this hasn't worked, hence the op in France a couple of weeks ago. Still in a cast. Hopefully back at the end of pre-season.
Margreitter and Peszko are both fit and available for training. There is absolutely no clause that we have to pay more money if Pez makes another appearance. The story / rumour is complete nonsense.
The intensity of the English league has caught up with a lot of the Solbakken signings and they pick up a lot of niggles. In an ideal world, had the medics known the number of foreign signings coming they would have been on the blower to the physios and medics at the Manchester clubs for advice, as there is a lot of pooling of resource and knowledge between the clubs across the leagues in this area.
Jamie O'Hara is fit as anybody within the group. Stats show he is doing lots of running, although he clearly hasn't been as effective as he would like. Another six months and a good pre-season will help him on.
Other stuff
The rebate for early birds if we go down will definitely be cash, but the terms are yet to be worked out.
Playing style will be addressed at seasons end, when we know where we are, along with a lot of other things. Kevin Thelwell will be having a much more significant input into decision making from the end of this season onwards. Sounds like a DOF appointment to me.
There will be absolutely no stand closures should we be relegated.
Think that is it.
