Have we seen his scans and got professional diagnostic specialists on this board Otherwise theres no actual proof whether he would need or didnt need surgery If surgery would have been deemed beneficial for the long run, he'd have got it surely Seems he didnt And in a few weeks can potentially get to full training on the grass and if he progresses well Maybe he could play for us again this season He could be huge if we make playoffs But without him its a tall task
Yes you're right I've said I didn't think we would. I still wouldn't be surprised if we didn't, but I'll be very happy if we do.
My point was if Man City wanted to rule him out for the season they'd be cautious and put him in for surgery whether it was required or not. Effectively they'd just rule him out for the season after assessing him, as Den suggested, they can play silly buggers and claim he's not fit if they don't want him playing again. The fact is they have put a timeline on it and are working to get him fit to play for us again.
I wonder from a medical point of view A tad off tangent But how much difference their facilities etc make for recovery versus if he stayed with us the whole time Or for any injured player
Absolutely, it's great he's stayed with them as they would have the best facilities in the world compared to what we have. I'm not pretending to be a medical expert, I'm just agreeing with Dennis that if they didn't want him playing again this season there were plenty of avenues they could go down without having to put up a charade of trying to get him fit only to not let him play for us. Quite often towards the end of a sporting season (at least down here) you see players booked in for surgery once the team can't make the play offs. Surgery can be pretty minor and just a clean out or fixing some longstanding issue a player was playing through, and it rules them out for the season when it no longer matters. Delap could quite easily have been put in for surgery to make sure everything was cleaned up and put right, which isn't to say he NEEDED or didn't need surgery. Given he wasn't put in for surgery and they're pushing to get him fit, it'd be pretty weird to then turn around and refuse to let him come back to us. That was all my initial post was suggesting. He's been cited as being back in 2-3 weeks (mid-April I think was the aim) so I think missing another 3-4 games for us? And will only be back with us when fully fit so in theory would be ready to go into the squad on the bench at worst. Of course he could have a genuine set back in his recovery which changes that timeline, but all we can go off is how things stand currently.
‘Full fitness’ is always a bit subjective. Man City will decide how cautious they want to be and that’s that. Hopefully he’ll be fit enough for them to feel comfortable with him playing for us, but if not then that’s their call and we’ll have to live with it. Fingers crossed
Their facilities are light years ahead of ours and the specialists they have and have access to are way above us, but that's to be expected. But with an injury like thay, 99.9% of the time it would be managed and done by the parent club. They would have pretty much full say over it all due to it being there player. Whether or not the above makes their recovery quicker can probably never be really proven, but as with anything and anyone in life, you'd always want the best care possible
But that's back to my point that if they didn't want him risked they wouldn't be pushing to get him back to fitness, they'd just assess the risk and rule him out for the season. They haven't done that and are confident he'll be fine in a few weeks. As above, that could change if he suffers a setback, but all we can go off is the latest updates.
<this> I just wonder whether this injury will make it more likely we have a chance of getting him back next season. If he had continued in the same vein of form all season, chances are he may well have gone to an EPL or overseas 1st division outfit. Nevertheless, let's hope he does come back, and we are in the EPL ourselves, though whether we make it or not, I'm looking forward to the run in. It's nice to be having this to look forward to, rather than being at the other end of the table wondering whether we will drop into the bottom 3.
Their manager already has a point at ours this season. Expect a similar game to Plymouth back in September
1970/71 season, Vague memories of attending with my rattle alongside my beloved dad (rip), my first full season going, and recall dad getting the hump over Banks pulling a header from behind the line and some dirty Stoke player clobbering our lads, 3-2 loss from what I recall. For that reason and that reason alone I always want us to smash em.
Denis Smith was doing the clobbering. Don’t think Ian Butler tried to go on the outside of opposing players much after the battering he took that day.
I don’t know why everyone’s getting excited about Delap returning & mentioning strikers in the same sentence. I know he’s scored goals, but he’s always playing out on the wing as far as I remember, so not the focal point of a striker.
Not always, but he was doing before he got injured because at the time it was a case of needs must. That being said, when he was playing up top he'd often drift out wide anyways so he could get on the ball and be the outlet. We really miss the way he runs at defenders whether he's central or wide to be honest.
You might want to test your memory then. He only played out on a wing when Connolly started up top, which was only 8 times in his 26 appearances. It was more a case of not having wide options and him being effective there, but he regularly played up top and was very good there.
