Cole Palmer’s nagging groin injury keeps getting more and more nagging, with the 23-year-old now set to be out for at least another six weeks, putting any potential return only in December.
He was supposed to be out only through the current international break, though England manager Thomas Tuchel cast some doubt on that when they had briefly assessed the situation, saying that he would be “very surprised” if Palmer were to able to play this weekend. And sure enough, he’s not going to be. Reports
over the break already “feared” that Palmer would be out until November, but even those fears have proven to be rather unfrightening.
In fact, as confirmed by Enzo Maresca today, Palmer will be out for another month beyond that!
“I was wrong [before, but] yes, absolutely [he won’t need surgery]. We try just to protect Cole as much as we can and the most important thing is that [he’s fully fit when he comes back].
“Unfortunately, the medical staff, they are not magicians […] We hope that six weeks are enough, but it’s a problem that we need to see step by step, week after week. But for sure he’s going to be okay.
“He looks very good, to be honest. He looks relaxed. He’s trying to recover from the injury. He’s doing all the therapy that he needs to do, so he looks good.”
-Enzo Maresca; source: Evening Standard
Ok, so sounds like it’s going to be longer than six weeks, yeah?
Physios are not magicians, sure, but somehow they’ll “for sure” fix him up in six weeks, having only gone backwards in the prior six weeks? That’s not how such injuries tend to go, and you certainly don’t have to be a magician to know that. Even if there’s minor improvement or a temporary reprieve, long-term solutions (and truly a full recovery) almost always require a more drastic intervention.
So when we reassess in December, we can look back on the three months wasted that could’ve been spent recovering from what’s most likely going to be an unavoidable surgery one way or another.
