Anthony Knockaert ruled out for three weeks
Anthony Knockaert is expected to be out for three weeks with the injury he picked up in last weeks friendly with Fortuna Dusseldorf – which, with Brighton and Hove Albion’s record of reporting injuries means we should see him back in the stripes by the start of September.
Knockaert was withdrawn after just 10 minutes of the 2-0 win on Friday and left the ground on crutches with his foot in a protective boot. That sparked fears, panic and mass hysteria that he could be out long term which would’ve been a massive blow to the Albion’s chances of making a flying start to life in the Premier League.
Thankfully, that doesn’t appear to be the case. With the swelling now subsided around the ankle, a scan has revealed that it is only slight ligament damage with the club placing a three week time frame on his return.
That means he is touch-and-go to make the opening game of the season against Manchester City which is three weeks this Saturday. Perhaps a more realistic target is our first away game of the campaign at Knockaert’s former club Leicester City in four weeks time.
All that of course is dependent on this being an accurate diagnosis and reporting of it by the club, who have developed an excellent reputation over the last two seasons for either spreading FAKE NEWS or being woefully inept at predicting when a player would return to action.
Gaetan Bong, Shane Duffy and Uwe Hunemeier have all been out for nearly twice the length of time originally stated by the Albion. Solly March missed nearly a year for what was originally a six month absence and the best of all came when Sam Baldocks “slight knock, strong chance he will be fit for the next game” at the end of last season ended up leaving him in the treatment room for six weeks.
