INJURY LOWDOWN
If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll already have this spicy hot take.
Don’t get your hopes up because children on Twitter are making up lies about the return dates of players.
We’ll start with two that aren’t hard ‘NO WAYS’ but they’re not far off.
The next time you see Thomas Partey and Tomiyasu, they’ll most likely be wearing another team’s colors.
Not because they’ve been sold, but because they’ll be playing at Asia Cup and AFCON.
Could Partey be included for the Liverpool game? For sure. The player obviously wants to get out there and show the world he mugged Declan Rice off against West Ham last year… but, that would be quite risky for Arsenal. If he’s not sold, there’s no midfielder on the planet more useful to our title run-in. Thomas owes us big time. One last jaunt before he goes to Saudi or Italy.
Reminder: Thomas has dropped out of contention twice this season in training sessions. He is absolutely incredible when he’s fit. So the temptation might be to have him in the squad for Liverpool with Jorginho a doubt… but if he comes back early and re-ups his injury, the consequences would be dire for his season, and more importantly to him, his chances to rep his country one last time in AFCON.
Tomi is in a similar boat. We over-played him again, we lost him during an important part of the season, so the idea we’ll roll him out before he goes and plays an integral role for Japan (lots of games) seems nuts even for Arteta.
Don’t get your hopes up on either. Be worried if they make an appearance. It would not be a clever move.
The player I am 100% sure about is Jurrien Timber.
Some weird guy on the internet who gets everything wrong / all of the time / because he guesses is saying Timber will be back for Palace.
Categorially, this is a huge, huge no.
There are four basic stages to an ACL recovery.
- Healing from the surgery
- Building muscle around the injured area
- Using the broken body part in high-intensity training
- Trusting the body in an actual match
I have spoken to experts, at the highest level, from England, and they all say the same thing: 7 months best case, 9 months worst.
There is no horse placenta treatment – stem-cell science is science lab dream stuff – miracle recoveries are the outlier.
Work back from those dates and the miracle recovery would be the end of February, the most likely outcome is going to be the end of March for the second leg of the Champions League quarterfinals.
Another part of this equation that mere mortals like you and I don’t fully compute is how hard these injuries are psychologically. The rehab is extremely tough and boring. You start to hate your PT. You hate your body for not doing what you know it can do. You worry every time you make a sharp turn the knee could blow out again. You worry you’ll never be the same again.
Even mentality monsters struggle.
A lot of people have been telling me Aron Rodgers, a 40-year-old quarterback, defied the odds and recovered from an Achilles injury in three months.
Please.
Firstly, no 22-year-old ‘soccer’ player will recover from that injury in 3 months in the next 5 years. They are vastly different sports, which is why you almost never see top-level 40-year-olds.
Secondly, if a miracle happens with a body… that body ain’t 40 years old. The Jets are done for the season, I would say there’s zero chance you’ll see them risking him this season because they know how bad the implications are if he fucks himself with the same injury again.
Also, remember which party those MIRACLE RECOVERY headlines suit the most. It’s the old player trying to justify their salary.
Back to the internet.
I do wish people would stop rewarding bad information. These idiots post fake stories – get 10,000 new followers – then when the story is proved incorrect, they don’t lose any.
I’ll get no followers for telling the truth because there is no value in reality on the internet.
Ok, that’s me done my darlings.
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P.S. The emails have stopped. I’ll be looking at that in the New Year. I lose money on this website. I can’t put so much time into something when I have children if it’s costing me money. So I’m looking at better options.