According to a new report in Germany, Newcastle United loan star Jetro Willems has been told he won’t play again until 2021.
This comes from Bild, who reveal that Eintracht Frankfurt doctor, Florian Pfab, has told the Dutchman he won’t be playing for ‘8-9 months’ after discovering an “Anterior AND posterior cruciate ligament tear” along with “cartilage damage” in his knee.
I think we all knew it was a bad one as soon as he was stretchered off in that 1-0 win over Chelsea in January, but Bild claim his parent club are describing it as a “very serious injury” for a footballer – casting doubt over his ability to make a full recovery.
He’s been dropping several hints that he’ll return to Tyneside when fit, or at least refuse to give up on his dream of securing a permanent move to St James’ Park, but it’s not looking great if this latest report from Germany is anything to go by.
With this in mind, it’s hard to see us activating the reported ‘option to buy’ initially installed in his loan move from Frankfurt last summer.
He was brilliant during his time on Tyneside, but it’s difficult to know how he will recover from such a devastating injury.
Instead, we may well continue to monitor his situation ahead of a potential move for the left-back in January 2021 – although you’d like to think a replacement may already have been signed by then (especially when Danny Rose’s loan move from Spurs is set to expire this summer).
