Town manager Gary O’Neil has revealed winger Jaden Philogene is back training, while keeper Christian Walton will be with the squad in Germany next week.

Philogene, who has had transfer speculation rumbling in the background all summer but with seemingly no firm interest as yet, has had a minor hamstring injury and is yet to feature in a friendly.

Walton suffered a foot problem early in pre-season but O’Neil says the 30-year-old will be back sooner than had been previously expected.

“He’s back training, to be fair, just hasn’t done quite enough yet, so he’s in good shape,” O’Neil said of Philogene. “He’s going to be back in and around it soon. Nothing too much else on on Jaden.

“[Christian’s] close, actually. He’ll come with us to Germany. I don’t know if he’ll be ready to go straight back in, but he’ll be with us, so he’ll be able to do a bit of work, I think.

“Palms [Alex Palmer] has got a bit of a sore elbow, it’s been bothering him for the last few games, bothered him a bit in the Wycombe game, I think. But he shouldn’t be too long either.

“So, to be fair, I don’t want to jinx ourselves, but, touch wood, through pre-season with the guys, Matty Allen [head of athletic performance] and the fitness team, have managed to get the loading right, we haven’t so far managed to lose too many, but we are working them hard to make sure that they’re getting the fitness. Everyone’s doing a good job at this moment.”

O’Neil isn’t ruling Jack Taylor and Azor Matusiwa, who underwent surgery at the end of last season, out of the opening match quite yet.

“They’ll be around Sunderland, but I don’t know whether they make it or not,” he said. “It will be a late one, I would think, they’re going to be close for that game.

“They might be back in training and not make the squad or they might have accelerated a bit and they might make the team. But we’ll see that’ll be one we’ll decide that week probably.”

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