Portsmouth boost as Wolves suffer costly injury blow ahead of Championship contest
Pompey travel to Wolves in the Championship next Tuesday.
Wolves have been dealt a costly injury blow ahead of their Championship encounter with Pompey next week.
It’s been a mixed start under new boss Cesar Peixtoto following the Old Gold’s Premier League relegation and presently sit 10th after a midweek defeat to Bolton Wanderers.
Wolves are back in action on Saturday when they visit Burnley before welcoming John Mousinho’s troops next week.
However, they will be without dangerman and star striker Raul Jimenez, who is facing a significant spell on the sidelines.
The 35-year-old has been in strong form since his Molineux return in the summer, netting three goals and collecting one assist in his six league outings prior to his setback.
The Mexico international has been forced to sit out four weeks of action after sustaining a serious knee issue during their Carabao Cup defeat to Everton last month.
Key Wolves striker suffers costly injury blow ahead of Pompey
This ruled Jimenez out of international duty during the three-week break as well as missing Wolves’ Championship contests with West Brom, Middlesbrough and Bolton.
He is expected to undergo surgery on Friday, which will subsequently see him sidelined until the new year.
Explaining the injury ahead of Pompey’s trip to Molineux next week, director of performance Phil Haywood said: ‘Raul injured his left MCL against Everton, which was four weeks ago now and unfortunately the injury has not responded as we expected, so we've decided that the best thing is to have surgery to repair that ligament.
‘Normally the ligament for a fairly low-grade injury would heal on its own, however this has not responded as we were expecting, and after regularly scanning for the last three weeks, the ligament is not healing in the anticipated way.
‘We've consulted with several knee specialists and decided the best course of action is to move to surgery to ensure that we are back in control of the time frames and have a clear idea of when he will be back
‘There is a danger that we can keep waiting for things to improve by treating the knee conservatively (without surgery), but if that doesn't happen, then at that stage we need to have surgery and waste more time.
‘So, he'll have the surgery on Friday in London, and then he'll have around three months of rehabilitation before he's ready to play again.
‘It’s obviously really disappointing for all of us, but we need to look forward, get the surgery done and start the rehab process as soon as we can to get him back on the pitch helping the team as quickly as we can.
‘After surgery, there's a period when you can't do too much whilst the initial wound heals. It is fairly straightforward surgery for an experienced knee surgeon – the ligament is reattached to the tibia and there is no reconstruction required.
‘The first two weeks he’ll be working on the muscles to maintain the bulk, then after two weeks, once through the initial post-operative phase, he can progress the work in the gym and pool and start to build towards full-weight bearing activities at around four weeks.
‘He's obviously really disappointed, as we all are. We all hoped that after the initial scans he would have been back pretty quickly, but unfortunately it's not responding at all.
‘He's disappointed, but he's also happy that we've now got a plan in place with real clarity. We can build around that and make sure that we're getting him back in the time frame.’
Pompey injury news
Pompey will also be without a number of key personnel as injury issues continue to hamper Mousinho’s squad.
John Swift is set for six weeks out after recently sustaining a knee injury, while Keshi Anderson became the latest figure to join the treatment room after withdrawing against Sheffield United on Wednesday.
Josh Murphy, Connor Ogilvie, Franco Umeh, Thomas Waddingham, Luke Brooke-Smith, Benjy Arthur are all absent, while it remains to be seen the severity of Conor Shaughnessy’s groin problem.