Ryan Mmaee was set to make his return for Stoke City in a friendly match against Bolton Wanderers after almost four months away from the team. Unfortunately, just as he was about to rejoin the squad, Mmaee suffered a setback. He had missed the final weeks of the previous season due to a hamstring injury and had been working with the fitness staff over the summer to recover from a knee injury. He returned to full training on Thursday, with hopes of participating in the friendly at Bolton, but fell ill with tonsillitis on Sunday and was still running a fever yesterday.
Steven Schumacher explained the situation: “Ryan is ill, he’s got tonsillitis. The doctor has seen him and put him on antibiotics. It’s a real shame because the plan was to get him some minutes at Bolton. He wasn’t in on Sunday or Monday, and he still has a fever three days later. It’s a bad bout of tonsillitis, and he wasn’t available. It’s not going to affect him going into Alkmaar and further forward, but it’s a long season, and he’ll get up to speed as quickly as he can.”
Schumacher added that Mmaee had been quite unfortunate. He had trained for a couple of days, looked sharp, and enjoyed being back with the team. After working with the physios for a long time, he was back in training on Thursday and Friday. Although he did not train on Saturday due to the team’s match at Stockport, he had planned to join a session on Sunday before falling ill and being unable to get out of bed.