Martin Drury makes Bojan Radulovic admission after Huddersfield Town absence

Drury has opted to err on the side of caution with Radulovic

Huddersfield Town boss Martin Drury acknowledged that he “just can’t afford to risk” Bojan Radulovic after the striker was left out of Tuesday’s 4-1 victory over Peterborough United.

The Terriers’ boss revealed following the win in midweek that Radulovic had dropped out of the squad due to fatigue in his hamstring, with the forward having started at Plymouth Argyle on Saturday.

Drury opted to err on the side of caution with Radulovic owing to previous injury setbacks, telling BBC Radio Leeds following Tuesday’s victory: “Bojan’s just a little bit fatigued. As we know with Bojan, he’s had a couple of injuries in the past, and they’ve normally come from a Saturday, Tuesday week.

“The fact that we’ve travelled five, six hours down to Plymouth, his output in the game in terms of his load was one of the highest he’s ever done as a player at Huddersfield Town, hence why he performed so well on Saturday for us, so he’s a little bit fatigued.

“It’s not that we didn’t want to, we just can’t afford to risk him, he’s too important to us, too important to the group, and out of respect for him, and I think he was honest himself as well, he knows that he probably needed to sit one out tonight, as frustrating as it is, because he’s a very good player.

“Hopefully he recovers over the next few days, and hopefully he’ll be back for the weekend, but we’ll assess that in the next couple of days.”

Ashley Fletcher was brought into the starting lineup after featuring as a substitute in the previous two League One games, and assessing the striker’s performance, Drury added: “He’s one of the best men I’ve ever met in football, he’s just such a great guy, so he’s always thinking about not just himself but other people. Maybe a couple of decisions, he was trying to put other people in when he could go alone.

“There were also a couple of moments where he did go alone, and I thought he looked a threat.

“I thought he had some really good moments, and it’s not easy when you’ve not played a couple of games to come straight back in, so credit to him, I thought he worked tirelessly, I thought his work ethic was excellent.”