Mick is forced to wait on Kightly

Nov 30 2009 By Andy Walker

WOLVES were today sweating on the outcome of Michael Kightly’s ankle injury.

The winger entered the fray for Greg Halford in the 31st minute against Blues during a tactical switch.

However, the 23-year-old’s afternoon took a turn for the worse shortly after the hour in an innocuous tussle with Barry Ferguson.

Kightly was in discomfort and received treatment for several minutes before returning to the field. But the knock proved to be too much and he was replaced by Nenad Milijas in the 66th minute.

“He’s damaged his ankle,” confirmed manager Mick McCarthy. “I’m not sure what the assessment is. We’ll have a look at him on Monday and see.”

Explaining his decision to bring Kightly on and make a tactical substitution in the game, McCarthy continued: “I just wanted to put Kights on. He’s been bright and lively all week and although I didn’t think he was fit enough to start, we weren’t getting the ball down and playing and I thought he might give us a lift, which he did. Unfortunately he’s got injured again at a time when he’d been playing well.

“I made the change in position bringing Stears (Richard Stearman) over to the right-hand side to play with Kightly because they’ve done it before. I wanted to try and get a bit of a partnership going.

“It didn’t matter what we did – we needed to get a foothold and we did in the second half purely and simply by working hard.’’