"It is a concern," the Reebok boss said. "He's not at the level of fitness we want him to be at and, until he gets to that level, we can't consider him for the first team.
"It's fitness and a slightly poor attitude, at the moment, as far as I am concerned.
"He's not really dedicated himself to the training as hard and as much as he should have done," the manager added.
"So I've decided to pull him out and get him back on his own to do the sort of training he needs to do to get his strength and power and fitness back to compete in games like last night's.
"While technically it wasn't the best, it was ferocious and the effort, commitment, pace and power were all there, and to deal with that you have to be on top of your fitness, and at the moment, El-Hadji is not that."