Striker hoping to declare himself fit for start of the season

Vadaine Oliver faces a race against time to be fit for the opening day of the season. The summer capture from Lincoln City will certainly miss the club’s last two friendly matches, against Aston Villa this evening and a Manchester United XI on Monday night after aggravating his groin against Nantwich Town.

Oliver, who hit an impressive treble at the Weaver Stadium remains hopeful that he could return to training at some point next week and thus declare himself fit for the opening day of the season against Rotherham.

Boss Steve Davis told crewealex.net: “The trick to any successful pre-season is to get through it and have everyone fit. A successful pre-season is to make sure everyone gets game time and you don’t pick up too many injuries.

“We virtually have a clean bill of health. We only have Vadaine and Billy (Waters) in the treatment room. We are hoping Vadaine will be able to train again next week and have almost everyone fit for Rotherham.

“Vadaine has a tight groin. He has a weak side from his days at Sheffield Wednesday and his body has over compensated a bit.

“He didn’t have the opportunity to do the same closed season work as the others in our squad, so he had six weeks off not doing very much and he came back, hit the ground and his body probably needed a rest because of the intensity.

 “It is nothing too serious but it supports the idea of our players’ coming in to do the injury prevention work during the summer.”