It’s been a long time since we’d heard about Conor Bradley after he suffered a season-ending knee injury back in January.
Bradley went down chasing the ball in stoppage time against Arsenal, and though at the time the news was that it wasn’t an ACL tear, it was significant damage to the bone and the ligaments and required surgery. He has recently been seen in the AXA training buildings doing rehab, including load bearing exercises, but he is still a long way off from a return.
Michael O’Neill, the
manager of the Northern Ireland men’s team, did recently corroborate the report, saying that Bradley was “making good progress,” but that he couldn’t put a timeline on when he’d be back in action for his country.
“Obviously, we have interaction with Conor quite regularly,” said O’Neill recently.
“I spoke to him last week. He’s doing well, you know, he’s making progress, but like it’s not for me to put any type of timeline on that progress at this minute in time.
“We just want him back, fit and healthy, of course we do, as do Liverpool, but it’s important that how that injury is handled.”
Unfortunately, there is now speculation that the injury Bradley is recovering from is much worse than originally reported, and that finding a new true right back will be a priority for whatever new manager comes in.
As always with social media only news, take these posts with a grain of salt, but Williams goes on to mention that the injury Bradley sustained when he landed is not the injury he left the stadium with, and that there could be wider ramifications that come with that information.
Considering there was some, let’s say… meddling involved in the moment Bradley was injured, this is not entirely surprising news. The news of his injury and the subsequent treatment and recovery has been indeed closely guarded since January and the successful surgery he underwent, so it is easy to see this and take it as fact and move on. Even O’Neill mentioned that any specific updates on his progress are “confidential between club and player.”
There isn’t really a way for anyone else to confirm this news, so we can really only cross our fingers and hope that it’s not true.
Bradley will have the summer to continue rehabbing before hopefully, eventually, returning to training if possible, and we can only cross our fingers for a successful recovery.
