James Maddison sees specialist with Leicester baffled by nagging knee injury despite all-clear with England at World Cup
JAMES MADDISON has seen a London specialist today to try and get to the bottom of his troublesome knee injury and has no chance of facing Liverpool at Anfield on Friday.
The England midfielder has yet to train with his Leicester City teammates since returning from the World Cup in Qatar more than a week ago.
Initially it was the back of Maddison’s knee which was damaged during Leicester’s 2-0 at West Ham on November 12, forcing him off after 25 minutes and leading to fears the 26-year-old would miss the World Cup.
However, the midfielder travelled to Qatar and, despite being ruled out of England’s opening two ties against Iran and the USA, Maddison was given the all-clear by England’s medical staff to take his place on the bench against Wales, Senegal and France.
Since returning to Leicester however, Maddison’s injury has failed to clear up and the front of his knee is now a cause for concern.
With their star playmaker no closer to returning, the Foxes sent Maddison to a London specialist, leaving Brendan Rodgers to sweat over his influential star.
“He won’t be available for the (Liverpool) game,” Rodgers revealed.
“He was with Mark (Waller) our doctor, getting some special advice in London today, so I’ll wait to hear from them a little bit later on.
“But he won’t be available for the game.”
When Rodgers was asked if Maddison’s injury had worsened, he made it clear it was separate to the original injury Maddison suffered at West Ham.
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“He was clearly getting treatment when he was out there and he and the medical team with England deemed him OK to train,” he added.
“He was training and available for (England) games.
“He’s come back here, looked to do some work and he has felt some pain in a different part of his knee.
“The medical team have assessed that and looked at that.
“He tried to do some multidirectional work and he was getting a pain from it.
“So we’re going down to London today to see the specialist and get another opinion on it to see where he’s at. And that’s what we’re up to, the latest.”
Asked if his medical team were surprised that Maddison had failed to train with Leicester since his return from England duty, Rodgers replied: “They had him see a specialist as well.
“They have some of the best specialists about, so I am sure they would have had specialists look at him. But I don’t need to talk about that.”