Former Nottingham Forest loanee Keinan Davis is said to be 'frustrated' after fitness issues have limited the forward to just three appearances for Watford so far this season.
The Aston Villa man enjoyed a successful loan spell with the Reds throughout the second half of last season in the Championship, scoring five goals and assisting another two on course to Premier League promotion. Davis was linked with a return to the City Ground throughout the summer transfer window before eventually being loaned out again to the recently relegated Hornets.
However, the striker has been hampered by injuries since being sidelined by a hamstring problem at the backend of last season that saw him miss much of Forest's run-in before returning in time for the play-off campaign. The issue reoccurred during pre-season while back at Villa, and now illness has struck down the 24-year-old.
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Davis has featured on three occasions as a substitute for Rob Edwards' side to date, most recently for an hour against Blackburn Rovers on Tuesday evening, having also managed a cameo against Birmingham City back in August and against Rotherham United earlier this month.
Discussing the player's fitness concerns, Edwards said: “Keinan hasn’t really had what you’d call a proper pre-season. He was training on his own much of the time, and so he’s not what you’d call match fit. He’s fit, but he’s not fully sharp.
“I probably did nobody any favours by throwing him on against Birmingham. I wanted to get him involved, I was excited we had him, and even though our sports science guys were saying it was too early, I put him in the squad and then brought him on at the end of the game.
“What we need to do is get him to a position where he’s absolutely match sharp. There is no injury problem or anything like that: it’s just a case that if I rush him in again, it might take longer to get him to that level of sharpness.
“What has set us back is that he’s been really poorly. He’s been that ill that he’s not even been near the training ground all week.
“So whereas we’d normally have him at the training ground working on those fitness aspects and also doing some other general football training, we’ve not been able to do anything. The key thing is that we let him get over the illness and then set to work on his fitness. It really is a question of being patient. I’m frustrated, Keinan is frustrated, but nobody can help being ill."
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