FC Barcelona will have to worry about a lot of injuries this season despite initial hopes of seeing improvements in that regard. Unfortunately, Hansi Flick’s team is now taking into account losses of the previous season and of the current one. With both of these sets of injuries combined, Barcelona is unable to enjoy a competitive squad depth.
Instead, the Catalan club continues to work with what little they have in the name of sporting resources. La Masia is the central hub of providing the first team with most of its firepower now, and that is not always a good thing given that these players are still just youngsters, and even prodigies like Marc Bernal can face severe consequences of being overplayed.
However, a key player that would have been expected to return and take over those responsibilities of the now-injured Bernal was Frenkie de Jong. The Dutch midfielder, who currently remains in recovery, was previously expected to be back right after the international break and be available for Hansi Flick.
Unfortunately, according to SPORT, the player’s return will not be so simple and will instead involve some complications. This is because the very nature of his injury is one that can easily be aggravated or cause a relapse even if the player encounters a badly timed or positioned tackle.
Despite reports claiming that his return would be imminent, the advice that the player continues to receive is to get surgery done on his ankle. Without such a surgical intervention, his injury will remain an unstable and vulnerable one given that the chances of an unwanted relapse will continue to exist.
It already happened before when he went through conservative treatment in order to be ready for the European Championship campaign for his country, the Netherlands, and instead ended up being sent back to Barcelona following a relapse. This time around, however, the player is constantly being advised to not make the same mistake again.
However, it must also be remembered that any kind of surgical intervention will then likely keep the player sidelined for some time. For now, the return date being mentioned by various sources is that he will return in two weeks following the upcoming international break, but it remains to be seen if the factor of surgical intervention will have to be taken into account.
