By Aston Villa manager Paul Lambert says that he is extremely unhappy with the way the Swiss national team decided to call up Phillips Senderos despite being aware that he had not been playing for more than a month.
The former Arsenal and Fulham defender has featured in only seven league matches this season. He missed a major chunk of the last month due to injuries, but he was called up for the Swiss national team’s Euro 2016 qualifying matches. Predictably, Senderos suffered a repercussion of playing too soon and will miss more matches for Aston Villa.
Lambert was hoping that the recent injury crisis for his team will soon clear after the international break, but it has only worsened. Villa go into the key match against Southampton without their first choice centre backs like Ron Vlaar, Nathan Baker, and Senderos. Baker is not expected to return to action for at least two months while Senderos and Vlaar will be out for a short period of time. Lambert says that the Swiss FA should have done enough homework before announcing the squad for the matches against Lithuania and Poland. Only the match against Lithuania was a key match for the Swiss while the encounter against Poland was a friendly.
“They should have done their homework. They should have known he hadn’t played for a month. Philippe was totally fine when he went there. We have had discussions as a club and are not happy about the situation and the medical people aren’t happy with it either.I have lost a centre half who has been playing well and has only just come back from an injury. We are down to a couple of centre halves really. We have lost two of our experienced centre-halves,” said Lambert. This absence will certainly not helped Villa, who have had only two wins this campaign.