Manchester United central defender Eric Bailly hasn’t played in well over a month, and it’s going to be a very long time before he plays again. He suffered a very serious ankle injury while on international duty with the Ivory Coast, and it’s possible that his season he could be lost.
United are doing everything they can to avoid the surgical route, an option that could sideline Bailly until 2018-19. “I think his injury is serious,” United Manager Jose Mourinho said Wednesday.
“I don’t know [how long he will be out] but his is an injury that comes from the last time he went with the international team and then we are trying a conservative treatment,” he continued following his side’s 1-0 win over A.F.C. Bournemouth at home tonight.
But, if the conservative treatment is not resulting, probably he will have a surgery procedure but let’s wait a little bit more.”
Mourinho shied away from discussing the specifics of the injury, which has kept him from featuring since the loss at Chelsea at November 5. The Portugese also didn’t provide a timetable for the return of Eric Bailly: “I’m not a doctor, I think the doctor can inform [you]. There’s nothing to hide, but I don’t want to be speaking about it.”
“I don’t want to be so pessimistic. I want to leave it with a doctor. Today, I played Smalling and Jones and we had Lindelof and Blind on the bench. Marcos Rojo was injured but nothing really big.”
Bailly, acquired from Villareal for £30m in the summer of 2016, was the very first transfer buy of the Mourinho era.
Mourinho is keeping a stiff upper lip about the situation, and maintains that the position group will be fine.
“During the whole season, we’ve had problems with central defenders but because the number is four or five, we manage always to have (players available) and Chris Smalling is playing amazingly well for seven or eight matches in a row maybe, so we are fine.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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