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First Team

Team news: Rico & Begovic pre-Palace update

Diego Rico and Asmir Begovic have minor knocks and are being assessed ahead of Tuesday's Carabao Cup match with Crystal Palace.

The defensive pair missed the weekend win over Blackburn Rovers, with Jason Tindall explaining in his pre-match press conference that he has no other fresh concerns.

"Diego Rico will be assessed today," said the manager. "I'm not expecting him to be available tomorrow or train in the next couple of days, at best we're hoping to have him back at the back end of this week. 

"Asmir was in early this morning seeing the physio and the medical department. hopefully it's not too bad, it was a dead leg and one we've got to monitor. Hopefully he'll be okay and able to train soon."

"We've had no new injury worries form the weekend, which was the most important thing," he said.

"Steve Cook and Chris Mepham were playing not 100% fit with Meps coming back from injury and Cookie having a thigh injury.

"We're assessing them this morning to see if they're ready so soon, other than that it's about looking at the team and making sure they're all ready to be play.

"Cookie was a huge doubt for the weekend, it says a lot for him that he declared himself fit when maybe he wasn't.

"Meps has also been fast-tracked and with the type pf player he is he wanted to put his body on the line and go out and play.

"We're very lucky that we have such a good squad to chose from and I'll be choosing a team to go out and win the game."

The Cherries have reached the last eight of Tuesday's competition in four of the last six seasons, with Tindall well aware of the test posed by the Eagles.

"It's brought us some good moments, but nobody remembers quarter-finalists, we can only take one game at a time.

"We played Crystal Palace here not too long ago so we know what sort of challenge to expect and what we'll need to do to beat them.

"I have great respect for Roy Hodgson and everything he's achieved in the game, so I'm looking forward to seeing him."