Sam Allardyce says he does not trust Senegal’s medical team to look after Diafra Sakho properly during the Africa Cup of Nations. The West Ham United manager remains furious at how Sakho returned from international duty in November with a back and neck injury, which Allardyce said was the result of a “mishap” from the Senegal staff. West Ham are in legal conversations with the Senegalese Football Federation and
Allardyce is so worried about how Sakho will be treated during the tournament in Equatorial Guinea, which begins on 17 January and runs for three weeks, that he wants to send a West Ham physiotherapist over with him to act as a chaperone.
Allardyce was blunt when he was asked whether he trusted the Senegal medical department with Sakho. “I don’t, is the answer to that. I don’t,” he replied. “I think that we’ll have to have a discussion about that later down the line.
“We may consider sending somebody with them – that might be our consideration to look after our asset. Of course, that competition is very big for the players that go there, they are very passionate about it but looking after them the right way is something that we’ve got to protect.”
Sakho was an unused substitute for Senegal against Egypt in the qualifying tie on 15 November before he started against Botswana in the final one four days later but Allardyce said that the injury was not suffered on the field or in training.
“I’m not legally qualified to make a comment any further than he didn’t get injured when playing or training,” Allardyce has said. “From an internal point of view, the club will deal with how it happened, why it happened and what we are going to do about it.”
Allardyce initially feared that he could be without Sakho for a month upon the striker’s return from Senegal, which was hard to take given the form that he had shown since his £3.5m arrival from Metz in August. Sakho had scored six goals in seven Premier League starts, plus one more in the Capital One Cup.
But Allardyce reported that Sakho had trained this week and he was in contention to make the squad for Sunday’s home match against Swansea City. “I’m not sure he’ll be ready to start the game,” Allardyce said.
West Ham stand to be without another Senegalese, Cheikhou Kouyaté, and the Cameroon player Alex Song during the Africa Cup of Nations. Kouyaté also returned from last month’s international break with an injury, which led to him missing the defeat at Everton but he has since regained fitness. Song has been out with a knee injury but he has trained this week and could feature against Swansea.
