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Robbie Robinson’s re-injured hamstring puts damper on solid Inter Miami result in Nashville

Inter Miami may have picked up another point on the road, but it might also have lost one of its regular starters to a repeat injury.

A shorthanded Inter Miami side grabbed a result away at Nashville SC on Sunday afternoon, but one of the bigger storylines in the goal-less draw at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee, was Robbie Robinson re-injuring his left hamstring.

Robinson had left last weekend’s win vs. the Philadelphia Union at halftime after pulling up lame on a run down the left flank, and he did so again in very similar fashion on another play down that side in this Week 3 showdown.

This time, however, Robinson did so after about only nine minutes on the field. The 22-year-old attacker did not start for Inter Miami at the left wing spot that he had gotten the nod in in each of the first two games of the year because he was not 100 percent healthy, and instead came off the bench in the 67th minute before exiting in the 79th.

“Robbie is okay,” said Neville. “We have been nursing him through the week. He has trained on and off through the week, and his scan was all clear. We were never going to take a risk, but ultimately he is still feeling a little bit of tightness.”

Neville added that he brought Robinson on against Nashville SC because the youngster passed the physical exams the team gave him in the lead-up to the match to prove he was “fully fit.” The Englishman pointed to Robinson’s run in the 70th minute that led to a controversial foul as an example of that, but Neville also stated that his staff gave Robinson training “modifications” over the course of the week.

Neville said too that Robinson also expressed a desire to play.

“I think with young players sometimes they do not know their own bodies, they do not know what pain is, or they do not know what tightness is,” said Neville. “I think that comes with experience. You think about the durability that Blaise Matuidi has developed over the last 10-15 years. He knows his own body. Robbie does not.

“He is still developing that,” Neville said. “He is a very, very young 22-year old, who is still learning about professional football and behaviors of professional football and elite performance and about how to prepare your body. We are working every single day with him and he is disappointed tonight, obviously, but we ticked every box, we did the due diligence, and it was just one of those things.”

Just how long Robinson will be out, if at all, is currently unclear. Neville did not immediately provide any details for the severity of the apparent tweaked hamstring, but insisted that no risks were taken with Robinson’s health on Sunday.

“We did not push him,” said Neville. “We left him to train with the team the last three days, we did some modifications, we spoke to him every day, the physios did great work with him, the fitness coaches did great work with him. We brought him to Nashville because we wanted him to travel, and then the boy wanted to play and we had all the evidence to suggest that he was fully fit. That is all you do.”

“It is just one of those things that we are just going to have to nurse him through this period,” added Neville. “He is a young boy, he is still educating himself what is pain, what is tightness, and what he has to go through as a young boy, but he will be fine.”

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