Joao Pedro was in training with Brighton on Wednesday, but manager Fabian Hurzeler was not ready to confirm the striker’s fitness for this weekend’s action.
The 22-year-old was not involved last weekend as the Seagulls were held to a goalless draw by Ipswich and he missed out again on Wednesday night.
Brighton did find their scoring boots without him, though, beating Wolves 3-2 to progress to the fourth round of the Carabao Cup.
Pedro was on international duty with Brazil ahead of the Ipswich game and returned short of fitness. Now he is back in training it appears a return to the first team is close, but Hurzeler is not going to rush him back.
‘He made a training session today and we shouldn’t…we don’t want to go any risk for today, and let’s see how the next days will be,’ the Brighton boss said on Wednesday.
In Pedro’s absence Brighton relied on less likely sources of goals against Wolves, with Carlos Baleba Simon Adingra and Ferdi Kadioglu finding he back of the net.
The German manager was pleased to progress, but not thrilled with his team’s performance on the whole, especially the first goal they conceded just before half-time.
‘We played a very good first half until the 44th minute,’ he said. ‘It’s a goal we should never concede because it’s after a transitional moment. It’s a lazy transition reaction from us.
‘It’s something that we can’t accept and is against our identity. We have to learn from these moments quickly because we can’t do this. It won’t help you win games. We made silly mistakes. We weren’t clean and clear like we were in the first half.’
Hurzeler will hope to have Pedro back in action at home to Nottingham Forest on Sunday afternoon after the Brazil international scored twice in the first three games of the season.
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