Win at a price? Initial injury news for LAFC’s Kaye, Najar

Los Angeles Football Club posted a big 3-1 win Sunday over the Seattle Sounders, playing shorthanded with the likes of Diego Rossi, Brian Rodriguez and Carlos Vela out, among others.

They became even more shorthanded in the opening minutes, after LAFC midfielder Mark-Anthony Kaye was forced out of the game after rolling his ankle while striding to reach a ball. Kaye couldn’t walk off, and was forced out just six minutes into the game.

It got worse. Kaye’s substitute, defender Andy Najar, got hurt too, and was replaced in the 13th minute, having only played seven minutes on the night, with LAFC down two subs already.

In the immediate aftermath of the game, head coach Bob Bradley was asked about the initial updates on the players.

In Kaye’s case, it may not be the worst-case scenario, but time will tell.

“I think we still need to do more checking,” Bradley said in the postgame press conference. “The first word is that the X-ray was negative. It appears to be a bad sprain. We’ll see how bad. It was quite swollen when he was on the field. So I think it’s one that we will need a little bit more time to give a full assessment.”

If Kaye has to miss extended time, it will provide a crunch to what had been LAFC’s deepest position group. Add to that, Kaye has an element to his game that’s not present otherwise on the roster, and in the past when he’s been hurt LAFC’s game has dropped as a result. Having said that, this has been a season of adversity for LAFC overall, and hopefully he won’t be out a long time.

As for Najar, who hasn’t gotten a real run yet since signing with the club in the summer, Bradley said it’s a hamstring injury that will need to be evaluated.

“Andy appears to be a hamstring, so we’ll need to probably set up an MRI to know how bad. I feel bad for Andy. He’s continuing to be hampered by these kind of injuries in his return to play where you feel like you’re starting to get him going a little bit and there’s a setback and that’s obviously really frustrating for him,” Bradley said.

Najar’s injury means both true right backs on the roster have hamstring injuries, with Tristan Blackmon’s status unclear for Wednesday’s game against the Vancouver Whitecaps.

On the bright side, a scary collision in the 2nd half between goalkeeper Pablo Sisniega and defender Eddie Segura led to Segura getting evaluated on the field by medical personnel for a potential head injury, but both players continued to play. Postgame, Bradley said Segura appears to be fine.

“Eddie took a good shot I think, actually it was Pablo, haven’t seen the replay, so he’s got some swelling above the eye but he’s okay,” Bradley said.

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