KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Sporting Kansas City have been dealing with injuries all season. Now, they likely won't even be able to field a full squad of 18 for Wednesday night's home match against the New England Revolution (8 pm ET; ESPN2/ESPN Deportes/WatchESPN).
And that's even with this week's recall of fullback Saad Abdul-Salaam from his loan to the NASL's San Antonio Scorpions.
“We need some bodies,” manager Peter Vermes told reporters during Tuesday's weekly news conference. “That's what we need at the moment. If he doesn't come back, we would only have 16 – and that includes two goalkeepers.”
Two of the players from the initial XI released on Saturday, before Sporting's scheduled home match against Colorado was postponed due to inclement weather and rescheduled for Oct. 21, are out for Wednesday's match.
Left back Seth Sinovic, who collided heads with D.C. United's Davy Arnaud in a 1-1 away draw on the previous weekend but finished out that match with five stitches above his left eye, warmed up on Saturday but was scratched when he didn't feel well.
While they're not sure the two incidents are linked, Vermes said Sporting are treating Sinovic's situation as a minor concussion and will hold him out until he is cleared to play again.
“We're not going to take any chances,” Vermes said. “We'll just wait and go through the concussion protocol. That's probably the best way to do it, as opposed to trying to act like it's nothing. It's better for us to be conservative, which we are.”
Winger Graham Zusi also is sidelined under the protocol, after he had to come out of the D.C. match following a head-knock with United's Bobby Boswell.
Center back Erik Palmer-Brown also was scheduled to start Saturday's match but will not be available on Wednesday, after departing to join the US national team team for the Under-20 World Cup that starts later this month in New Zealand.
“I made the deal with the coach, Tab Ramos, to keep him here for that game,” Vermes said. “Then, unfortunately, we didn't play and so we lost him.”
Midfielder Roger Espinoza and left back Marcel de Jong are both questionable with groin strains, midfielder Bernardo Anor is out with a hamstring strain and right back Chance Myers is still two weeks away from his scheduled return from a season-ending Achilles tendon injury in 2014.
Sporting have midfielder Mikey Lopez on loan to USL affiliate Oklahoma City Energy FC, but Vermes said he also is unavailable due to injury.
“There's no doubt we're missing some guys who have been big parts of this team,” winger Jacob Peterson said later in Tuesday's news conference. “But there's enough guys here that we feel comfortable, collectively, that we can get the job done. Even though it is against a good New England team, I still think that we have enough that we can get a positive result.”
And despite their thin roster and a looming away date with Seattle on Saturday, Peterson said, Sporting can't afford to take a cautious approach on Wednesday against the Revs.
“I think the second you do think about that, that's the time when you do get injured,” he said. “So that's not something that I personally would think about, and I don't think that many of the other guys would, either.”
