Johnson Return Weeks Away

Damien Johnson’s return to action after suffering a broken jaw is still at least 3 weeks away according to Steve Bruce.

Bruce also revealed he was still seething over the elbow by Paul Robinson and still insists that the action was deliberate despite protestations to the opposite by both the player and Albion.

‘I’m not going to take anything back, no matter all this nonsense that [his children] have been threatened at school and all the rest of it, I’m not wearing that by the way.

‘Damien Johnson had three different fractures of the jaw. He is still wired up internally – to his teeth somehow – so you can’t open your gob. He is still trying to take food through a straw. He’s probably lost a stone in weight.

‘Just now he is starting to be a little bit pain-free. He will see specialists next week to see if he can have the wires removed. But it will take another three weeks for the fractures to heal.’

Bruce is also convinced that the FA would’ve not let something like this pass had it happened in the Premiership.

‘Without question, if it had happened in a Premiership match with all the coverage it would have received.

‘The number of managers and people who rang me on it thought it was horrific. One in particular was irate about it because it was that brutal.’