Fleetwood Town v Leeds United: Berardi hit by injury as Monk mulls over team changes

Berardi limped out of Sunday’s 3-0 defeat to Queens Park Rangers after only 20 minutes, consigning him to another spell on the sidelines.

The right-back suffered two ankle ligament problems last season and was forced to miss part of pre-season with a leg injury sustained during Leeds’ summer tour of Ireland.

Yesterday’s outing at QPR was his first appearance at any level since a 2-2 draw at Hull City in April.

And he failed to reach the midway point of the first half before Monk replaced him with Lewie Coyle.

Coyle is now expected to start away at Uwe Rosler’s Fleetwood but Monk could make more concerted changes to his line-up for the first-round game at the Highbury Stadium.

Luke Murphy, Jordan Botaka and Souleymane Doukara all failed to make Monk’s 18 at Loftus Road while goalkeeper Marco Silvestri was ruled out with a knee complaint.

New signing Pablo Hernandez was also prevented from playing by a delay in securing international clearance from Qatar.

The Spaniard made the trip to London but watched the game from the stands.

Monk said: “I’ll have a look and I’ll reassess.

“The squad will be used. You need a squad in this league and they’ll all contribute.

“We want to go to Fleetwood and win and then go into the game against Birmingham (on Saturday) and get a good result again.

“Everyone has a role to play because it’s a long season with lots of games.

“Everyone in the squad is in contention.”

Leeds were beaten in the opening round of the League Cup under Rosler last season, knocked out after a penalty shoot-out at Doncaster Rovers.

Rosler was sacked after only 12 games in charge of United and remained out of work until Fleetwood appointed him as manager 9 days ago.