Give Me Sport‘s weekly column with Ben Dinnery is up, and on the menu this week is Wesley Fofana.
Various reports have him close to a return, and we saw pictures of him training with the rest of the squad this week.
The bad news is that Dinnery thinks that a return for Saturday’s early kick off is a long shot. Given how long he’s been out, a rapid return makes no sense.
“[A Fofana return] is certainly one that I definitely would not expect; last competitive game probably over four months now; I think it was the beginning of October,” the injury specialist mused.
“His only semblance of any sort of real football of note was the behind-closed-doors game with Brentford, where he suffered that reaction or recurrence [of his injury] in that game as well.”
The good news is that, really, we don’t desperately need him right now. Thiago Silva and Benoit Badiashile have formed a nice partnership in a back 4, and have kept three clean sheets in a row. Of course it will add a huge amount to have Fofana back – but we’re not rushing him as we might have been a few months ago.
He’s already had one relapse – let’s make sure it’s the only one.