Tariq Lamptey suffers injury setback – don’t panic Mr Mainwaring

Poor Tariq Lamptey, when will his injury nightmare ever end? Brighton & Hove Albion’s most exciting young player has not kicked a ball in competitive action since December and it seems unlikely we will see him in a Seagulls shirt anytime soon after Graham Potter confirmed Lamptey would miss the start of the 2021-22 season.

Despite a number of upbeat updates, Lamptey is still yet to return to training with Brighton’s opening game of the new campaign away in the 19th century at Burnley less than two weeks away.

Speaking after the 3-1 friendly win over Luton, Potter said: “He is not progressing as well as we would like. Because of the nature of the injury, we have to be really careful with him. It is still frustrating at the moment.”

Lamptey made his most recent Albion appearance on Wednesday 9th December in a 0-0 draw at Fulham. The club diagnosis was that he would be absent for a couple of weeks and yet here we are, nine months later and neither hide nor hair has been seen of Lamptey.

As far as misinformation goes, it puts that 2017 “Sam Baldock will be out for a couple of days” which turned into six weeks in the treatment room in the shade.

Tariq Lamptey has since undergone surgery on his hamstring, a type of injury not uncommon in young players whose muscles and skeletons are still developing – especially those who rely on explosive pace as he does.

Lamptey is not the first player to suffer from such problems in the early stages of his career. He will not be the last either. Despite this, a lot of Brighton fans seem to have already begun writing him and his future prospects off with phrases such as “No wonder Chelsea let him go on the cheap” and comparisons to Jose Izquierdo.

Likening Lamptey to Izquierdo could not be further from the truth. The similarities between the two start and end with the fact that they are both quick players; their injury situations were not in the slightest bit comparable.

Whereas Lamptey is suffering from a muscular injury, Izquierdo had problems with the meniscus cartilage in his knee. Meniscus is notoriously difficult to treat, as Micah Richards also knows having been forced to retire through having the same injury as Izquierdo.

The management of Izquierdo’s knee was appalling too. He initially played through it at the 2018 World Cup with Colombia, doing goodness knows how much damage.

Brighton then neglected to operate when the opportunity arose, instead trying rest and recover so that he would be fit for the start of the 2018-19 campaign.

Nine months later and the Albion were so desperate to survive that they were playing Izquierdo when he was clearly not at 100 percent. That culminated in an awful showing against Newcastle United in the penultimate home game of the campaign which was painful to watch.

Izquierdo was hauled at half time, packed off to the operating theatre and spent the next two years fighting to get fit. He has managed less than 10 minutes of competitive senior football since, coming on as a second half substitute in the 1-0 defeat at Sheffield United back in April before being released by the Albion.

Whilst it may be frustrating that Lamptey has spent so long on the sidelines, better that than have him rushed back before he is ready and risk doing long term damage as happened to Izquierdo. Lamptey is too talented a player to have him potentially ruin his career playing for Brighton against Watford.

The Albion’s medical team come in for a lot of criticism, partly of their own making by saying players will be out for days when they know it will be weeks.

This frustrates fans and creates an impression of incompetence, even though it is gamesmanship that has been going on since Hughton arrived at the club.

In reality, Brighton have an excellent medical set up. Most of the football world laughed when the Albion brought in not one, but two well-known sicknotes in Adam Lallana and Danny Welbeck who Liverpool, Arsenal and Watford had washed their hands off because of their injury records.

Brighton through patiently nursed them back to the field. Lallana was used in 30 of 38 Premier League matches in 2020-21 and Welbeck played 24 games, scoring six very important goals. Not many clubs would have extracted those contributions from two players written off as crocks.

It is why we should have some faith in the Albion’s medical team knowing what they are doing when it comes to easing Tariq Lamptey back from injury. If they can get Lallana and Welbeck fit and firing, then anything seems possible.

There are of course more relevant examples of young Brighton players similar to Lamptey impacted by hamstring problems from the Albion’s recent past.

Kazenga LuaLua struggled to string more than 10 games together before being ruled out for another 10 and Will Buckley is already retired at the age of 31 having suffered with complications throughout his career.

Both LuaLua and Buckley though were forward players who relied upon their pace far more than Lamptey has to as a right back. They had no choice but to keep using their speed, even if it meant putting themselves at risk of injury and doing long-term damage to their careers.

If worst came to worst and Lamptey had to temper his game to make less of those Usain Bolt-style charges which cause so much carnage in opposition ranks, then he could do so and still be a brilliant right back more focussed on defence than attack. He is so good technically.

Steven Gerrard underwent a similar change in style. Gerrard suffered from his fair share of muscle problems when he first burst onto the scene at Liverpool. Eventually, he adapted to rely less on pace and more on technique. That did not work out too badly.

Tariq Lamptey missing the start of the season through injury is not ideal, especially when Brighton have missed out on another young Chelsea right back in Tino Livramento who has joined Southampton for £5 million after turning down a new contract with the Blues.

Chelsea insisted on inserting a £25 million buyback clause in any deal for Livramento, something Tony Bloom was not prepared to agree to knowing that it would probably result in the player returning to Stamford Bridge in a few years time at a fraction of his true worth.

Lamptey though will return for Brighton at some point. He may need to be a slightly different player, but he is that good that it should not matter greatly. Time to trust in Potter and the medical team to do what is right. No need to panic, Mr Mainwaring.

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