He has yet to play this season after suffering the injury in training, and Hughes told a news conference: “It was a little bit of scar tissue that was restricting the movement of the tendon in the ankle”.
Advertisement
“It has all been cleaned out and the likelihood is that he will be back in six to 10 weeks”.
“Tottenham had a fantastic result there last season after they scored early in the game, but the addition of Wilfried Bony brings something different to the table for Stoke”.
However, he does not anticipate Butland returning before late October, while back-up goalkeeper Jakob Haugaard is also struggling with an ankle issue.
Defender Bruno Martins Indi and striker Bony both moved to the Potters on transfer deadline day, the latter joining on loan from Manchester City, and are in line for their first appearances for the club.
Goalscoring has been something of a problem for Stoke and Hughes is optimistic Bony can help improve things on that front.
“He’s scoring three, four and five goals every session and he’s disappointed when he even misses one”.
“Glen joined in with the first team today (Thursday), which is good, so we fully anticipate that he should be okay now”, Hughes added.
“I don’t typically go against Stoke at home because they are a hard team to beat, but they need to get their campaign up and running”, Merson wrote in his Sky Sports column.
“We are very encouraged by what we’ve seen in training and there’s no reason why he can’t replicate that in games”.
Advertisement
Hughes said of that start: “It is not a concern at all”.
