Walters back fit and fired up

Football reporters are used to being told that so and so was “on fire” in training but it’s rare enough that we get to hear about an equivalent inflammable ankle.

And Jon Walters certainly didn’t mean it as a compliment when he reported that “my ankle was on fire for 30 minutes” after the incident at Gannon Park on Tuesday when an accidental collision with Shane Long looked, for a while, like it might have caused the Stoke City man a serious problem.

“To be fair, he caught me on the side of my nerve,” said Walters. “I’ve had bad ankle injuries before and the pain was worse than the lot, but I’m fine. I came across him, I was trying to block him so it wasn’t his fault. Shane’s a good lad and he thought he’d hurt me but half an hour later back at the hotel I was fine.”