Either Steven Taylor and Fabricio Coloccini are injured, or they aren't; it's really not rocket science. News from around the country this morning, and overnight suggested that both would definitely miss the WPR game, and were likely to miss as much as a month out of the first-team. But then, in their characteristically contrarion manner, the Chronicle have suggested that Steven Taylor will in fact train this week and that Coloccini will be assessed ahead of the home game with Harry Redknapp's chancers. So, according to the local papers, who have no access to the club aside from mysterious "sources" who presumably meet them under the cover of Grays multi-story car-park and talk in whispers around their massive comedy collars, suggest the muscle and knee injuries aren't bad at all. That would fit in with Alan Pardew's claims that he wasn't "too worried" about Colo's injury when he limped out of the West Brom game. But then he wasn't too worried about the club's form for most of 2014 either, so it's difficult to gauge when we actually should be concerned now. Someone is telling porkies again, and the smart money this time is on the nationals, who have even less reliable sources than the local banned papers. Perhaps it's all supposition that Remie Streete's recall from loan suggests a longer term issue rather than just concern over something bad possibly happening like Mike Williamson being back in the first-team for an extended period. That recall does seem oddly knee-jerk if Coloccini and Taylor might be fine: the youngster hasn't played any football in the Premier League, and was told he wasn't really going to get a chance at all this season. So either the thinking has changed, or the Chronicle's reporting is wrong. Let's see on Saturday who's actually any good at predicting injuries.
