According to North East reporter David Coverdale, Florian Lejeune is set to make a shock early return to action at NUFC – with him expected to resume first-team training in a few weeks time despite initial fears that he’d be ruled out of the entire season.
The Frenchman ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament during pre-season training in July, however he’s since seen a specialist in Italy and has enjoyed a miraculous recovery after surgery and an intense rehabilitation programme.
Rafa has confirmed he’s back in light training, but he’s expected to return to full training at the start of next month – with David Coverdale’s piece for The Sun suggesting he could return to Premier League action before the year is out.
Here’s what Rafa’s had to say:
“It’s going really well. We’ll see how long it takes, but I think it will be sooner than everybody was expecting at the beginning.
“I don’t want to be too optimistic, but he’s had a couple of training sessions doing the warm-up with the team.
“On the ball, he can do almost everything, but he has to be stronger, quicker, and after, he has to train with the team.
“After training with the team for a while, we can take the risk of playing him in games.”
Considering this injury keeps most players out for 9-12 months, this is some recovery!
It’ll be great to have him back, but Benitez will be facing one hell of a selection headache when he has Lejeune, Lascelles, Fernandez & Schar to fill two spaces in his side.
If only we had this problem at the other end of the pitch!
Jokes aside, it’s brilliant to see Lejeune making such an impressive recovery from what can be a career-ending injury for some.
