

USMNT international Chris Richards will miss Crystal Palace’s Premier League match with Southampton on Wednesday with a calf problem.
The defender sustained a minor injury in Palace’s 3-0 win over Fulham in the FA Cup quarter-final on Saturday.
He has played the past 10 games for Palace, helping them to a run of six away games without conceding a goal, and has been an ever-present in the side since Trevoh Chalobah was recalled by Chelsea on January 15.
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The 24-year-old has started 20 times this season, featuring in all their FA Cup matches, and has impressed at the heart of defence alongside Maxence Lacroix and Marc Guehi.
“We will miss Chris Richards tomorrow, he is struggling a bit with his calf,” Glasner said in his pre-match press conference on Tuesday. “We expect him to be back for Brighton, but tomorrow is too soon.
Richards played 79 minutes for his country in their 1-0 Concacaf Nations League defeat by Panama on March 20, but did not feature in the 2-1 defeat by Canada three days later.
Glasner believes the travelling was unhelpful in Richards’ preparation to return to domestic action, but stopped short of suggesting it was the cause of the injury.
“At the end of the game he felt like (he had) a cramp in his calf. We thought it was cramp and this (can happen) very often after travelling, he played in LA with a nine hour time difference and a 12-13 hour flight.
“It’s not a heavy injury but we know we can’t take any risks. If the muscle ruptures then he’s out for four to six weeks. That wouldn’t have been a big problem in March where we had two games but now we have seven in April and we want (all) the players available.”
Glasner will now consider whether to bring in Nathaniel Clyne as the third centre-back, or whether to drop Jefferson Lerma back into defence in Richards’ place for the trip to St Mary’s.
“This is one solution (to play Lerma at centre-back),” said Glasner. “Clyne is another solution. The third solution you will be surprised by but that is why sometimes we play (matches) internally. In this game I tried Tyrick Mitchell inside for one half and Ben Chilwell for the second half.
“Jeff Lerma played in the back three so we used it to get information on what could work and how they can fit together. We got some responses and all the responses you will see tomorrow.”
(Julian Finney/Getty Images)
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