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Are you sitting down? If not, please sit down. What I'm about to tell you may shock you and I don't want you to faint and fall from the news.
Okay, now take a deep breath. I know we could never have foreseen this, but Aston Villa have dealt with injuries before and they will likely have to do so again. But this just hurts where we shouldn't have to hurt. How could a player such as Joe Cole get injured? It seems unfathomable.
Well, he apparently picked up some sort of a thigh problem in the friendly with Mansfield last week, and it carried over a bit longer than was expected. So he was ruled out of last night's match against FC Dallas, but we were all assured that it was a minor thing. Nothing to be worried about. He'd probably be back for the match against Houston Dynamo on Saturday.
But now Paul Lambert is considering sitting him for that match as well. Paul Lambert said of the 32-year-old: "I won't rush him, he'll be touch and go."
Let's hope it's only a small thing and that Cole will be ready soon. After that I doubt we'll have any other injury problems with the midfielder. He's always been such a healthy player, after all.