Middlesbrough: Chuba Akpom should be fit for Reading game

Akpom missed Wednesday’s 2-2 draw at Stoke City after sustaining a knee injury in last weekend’s draw with Sheffield United.

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The Boro striker was assessed in the aftermath of the game with the Blades, in which he scored both of his side’s two goals, and the results have been positive.

As a result, Chris Wilder is hoping to have Akpom back available when his side travel to the Madejski Stadium to take on Reading.

Wilder said: “Hopefully, we’ll have Chuba back for the weekend. We’re hoping, fingers crossed, that he’ll be okay. His absence was another blow that we had.

“We’re not at our strongest at the moment, everybody knows that, so to lose Chuba and Matt (Crooks) for the game on Wednesday night was a disappointment. But you saw the way the other players said, ‘Right, we’ll dig a bit deeper for each other’ and to still produce that level of performance is incredibly encouraging.”

Crooks was a second-half substitute in Wednesday’s draw with Stoke, and having been struggling with the after-effects of an illness, the midfielder should be available to return to the starting side tomorrow.

Josh Coburn is around a month away from being able to return to action, with Wilder still feeling that the youngster would benefit from a loan move away from Teesside. At this stage, however, a January switch now looks more likely than a deal being rushed through in the final few weeks of the current transfer window.  

“Josh is probably four weeks away,” said Wilder. “There’s been loads of inquiries about him, which I think is good for us and testament for where he’s at. I do believe that once he gets back, we’ll get him out.

“It’ll be something that’s happening with him, but obviously he’s still got some hurdles to jump over first. It hasn’t really changed – the attitude we have about him going out and playing some games.

“There’s enough clubs that will look at that and say, ‘Well we’re disappointed (about his injury) because we’d still like to take him’. There’s still a big period to January 1, and I still think there’ll be interest in him. I know there’s interest in him, regardless of his injury.”