'I'm not a doctor' - Frank Lampard reacts to Coventry City player situation | OneFootball

The Sky Blues may be without the services of Josh Eccles after the midfielder was substituted at Deepdale through injury

Coventry City manager Frank Lampard has issued an update on the potential unavailability of both Josh Eccles and Milan van Ewijk after his side's 1-1 draw against play-off chasing Preston North End at Deepdale on Tuesday night.

The Sky Blues headed into the encounter looking for an immediate response after suffering just a second league defeat of the Championship season at the hands of pre-season title favourites, Ipswich Town, over the course of the weekend.

However, it would be fair to say that, despite their lofty position at the top of the second tier table, many City fans wouldn't have looked at the fixture in the North West as the club's best opportunity to source a bounce back from their disappointment at Portman Road.

It has been well-documented that the Sky Blues have failed to emerge victorious in a league fixture at Deepdale in their entire history, with a solitary success at the Lilywhites' home stadium coming through a 3-1 success in the EFL Cup back in September 2000.

Such fortunes continued to transpire in midweek in what proved to be a frustrating night for those of a Sky Blue persuasion, who saw Daniel Jebbison quickly cancel out Andrew Hughes' opening own-goal after 70 minutes, despite the fact that Paul Heckingbottom's side had played over half of the encounter with 10 men following Liam Lindsay's dismissal eight minutes before the break.

As such, the West Midlands side remain five points ahead of second-place Middlesbrough, who made it three successive victories under Kim Hellberg with a 2-1 win at Charlton Athletic, as they now prepare to face Bristol City at the CBS Arena on Saturday afternoon.

However, after enduring particularly frustrating luck on the injury front in recent times, Lampard could be forced into yet another squad change against the Robins.

Lampard has been forced to shuffle his midfield pack at varying points of a largely successful season thus far, with star performers such as Rudoni and Victor Torp enduring respective absences.

The aforementioned Danish midfielder made his return to the Sky Blues squad in midweek after going down with a sickness bug ahead of the 3-0 defeat at Ipswich on Saturday, and he would replace Eccles after just 31 minutes on Tuesday night, with the 47-year-old revealing post-match that the homegrown midfielder had suffered a calf issue which may keep him sidelined.

Meanwhile, the normally reliable van Ewijk was omitted from the squad altogether after being hit with a virus of his own, just days after Torp suffered a similar fate.

As such, he was replaced by former Lilywhites loanee and summer signing from Aston Villa, Kaine Kesler-Hayden.

Unsurprisingly, Lampard was quizzed about the circumstances of both Eccles and van Ewijk, although he is yet to know whether the symptoms which the Dutch full-back has picked up are identical to his midfield colleague, potentially hinting at a bug which has made its way through the club's training bases.

On Eccles, Lampard told Coventry Live: "He’s got a bang on his calf, which he said was very sore. He was struggling to move after it so we’ll have to see."

Turning his attention to questions on the availability and potential recovery timescale for van Ewijk, the Sky Blues boss stated: "I don’t know, I’m not a doctor, but it’s an illness of what we’re reading in the papers at the minute.

"It’s going everywhere isn’t it, so I don’t know what form of illness it is but yeah, he fell ill on Sunday afternoon."

Coventry City will hope for winning return despite injury and illness concerns

Given the circumstances surrounding the fixture and what played out on what was not the best playing surface in Lancashire, a point against a so-called 'bogey' side is still fairly respectable from Coventry's perspective, with Preston proving tricky customers for several sides expected to challenge for promotion thus far.

There may be a few nerves given it is now two games without a win for the Sky Blues. However, their form at the CBS has been tremendous, and they will hope that continues against Gerhard Struber's Robins on Saturday.

It remains to be seen if Eccles and van Ewijk will be available for Lampard, but it is clearly a timely boost that Torp's own sickness absence was nothing major, which could offer a sense of encouragement.