Rafa Benitez spoke to Chronicle Live as injury has cut short Siem De Jong’s pre-season.
The Swiss-born Dutch international tore his hamstring injury in training and has returned to Tyneside for treatment. De Jong has endured repeated injury torment since joining in 2014 in a £6m deal. Shortly after returning from a long-term thigh injury, he suffered a collapsed lung in 2015 before his sight was threatened in a freak accident involving his contact lenses.
By comparison, this week’s hamstring injury is small fry but with his record, you can’t rule anything serious out.
Asked about the situation, Rafa said:
He was a really bad moment to be fair.
I was close to him and he tried to keep the ball in with his heel and there was a problem with his hamstring. That can sometimes happen.
It was a bad movement but it was a positive thing in terms of trying to get the ball and fighting for that. That’s the positive view but the negative is that the movement was too dangerous.
Now we have to wait to see if he is fit.
At the moment, there’s no return date set for De Jong and an update isn’t expected until the squad returns from Ireland, at the very earliest.
It’s a staggering run of bad luck and you can’t help but feel sorry for the man. With a single goal for the club so far, we might need to have some t-shirts made up which celebrate that “I was there when Siem De Jong scored”, just in case it’s a while until the next one!