OTF

Yes it's a bit of a shit one, smart from Gordon and fast feet and he gets booted so it's a foul. If you leave enough time for someone to do that it's on you.

Well this will be given if he's going to the monitor.

Gordon got booted.

And now Miggy can't play on, FFS.

Laughably bad from Longstaff. So much time and ends up looking like an MLB player.

Isak got that very very wrong, perhaps partial blame could be the shock of Miggy crossing with his right foot.

At least Livramento seems to be walking freely, not that it actually matters for anything now.

The Lewis Hall Bat signal has been shone.

Well that answers the question can it get any worse?

Taking the piss here, both them and us.

Atrocious defending, and you just know Dubravka is not going to save once it's one on one.

Why isn't VAR looking at this? Eventually they did. Their player Kudus struck him in the face, you get a free swing when you're cynically fouled though apparently.

We're pretty shit.

The Longstaff Zone

That's how I read it at first

Paqueta what a nonce, there was nothing in that.

I don't know if that's true, but you're right about the timing; Maldini was sacked in June, Tonali sold in July. My bad. Who knows when our interest started, reports of us tabling a bid came in June. There's no way in the world that we should have an interest in Maldini though! Football directors ideally have an understanding and experience with a variety of football internationally, Maldini is an absolute legend of the game but having spent his entire career in Milan that insularity works against him.

He was technical director at AC Milan when they sold Tonali to us.

Silver linings and all, because of this I get to see some version of our team play twice.

FYP

Basically. In the long term we'll be better for it. Last season was so bloody good. Wheels fell off this season when we capitulated against Liverpool.

It's far from career ending but generally wipes out a season. It's if there is a recurrence (2-3% overall but probably higher in professional sportspeople) then it can become a career ender. There's a much higher incidence of ACL injuries in women's football due to the angle of their knee based on their wider hips (according to my physio). The surgery is very advanced and is very common, as I mentioned earlier there are loads of papers regarding the placement of the graft and research into the benefits of each graft type, but considering most ACL injuries don't involve contact they don't really know why they really occur initially which makes it difficult to attempt to prevent recurrence anyway. There's loads of collateral damage that can also occur when the ACL ruptures as the knee can move into an unnatural position putting stress onto the other ligaments and the meniscus (the shock absorbers of the knee). One of the worst is the unhappy triad where you tear the ACL, the MCL and also damage the medial meniscus (the one on the inside). Sometimes the meniscus damage is picked up on an MRI but othertimes if it's a bucket handle tear it can't be confirmed until surgery. I had a partial MCL tear as well as the full rupture of the ACL bit thankfully no meniscus damage. I did however have a lot of bone bruising seeing as the unnatural twisting motion was stopped by bone hitting bone rather due to the ACL not doing its job. Took ages for me to be able to bend that knee any significant amount. I had to work on this before surgery. So sometimes it's best not to operate straight away after an injury occurs also, if they do and the rest of the knee is not in a good state it won't ever recover fully. With Botman there wouldn't have been any other damage when the initial injury occurred so operating right away (with hindsight) would have been the best option. It seems strange when they get the decision wrong at that level, but it makes sense when you consider all factors at play. Now I hope that noone who is medically trained reads any of what I have posted as they're likely to tell me it's a complete load of shit.

The risks of recurrance with hamstring or patella grafts are between 2 and 3% which is pretty high considering our shitty luck with injuries. Krafth had ACL surgery and his i jury was quite bad. We've not see him play a lot since, but when he did he seemed fine. Livramento also tore his ACL and missed more than a year from it. Like me he had complications with his hamstring afterwards so it's likely that was used for his graft: Newcastle United new boy Tino Livramento has sought to calm the nerves over his recent knee injury that kept him sidelined for over a year. The right-back, 20, enjoyed a tremendous debut season at Southampton before suffering an anterior cruciate ligament injury in April 2022. Livramento was stretchered off the pitch while taking in oxygen after the injury, before initially planning his return for early 2023. A hamstring setback in the winter cost him another four months on the sidelines before an eventual return to the under-21 side after 355 days and a return to the senior side after just shy of 400 days.

It's a tough one as there is a push for not performing surgery for ACL 'injuries'. Sometimes there are differing opinions on MRIs as to whether there is a full rupture or not, and if not whether it can recover on its own. The ACL is not in an area of the knee that gets good blood flow as it's internal compared to say the MCL which is on the outer of the knee and gets greater flow and is easier to see the condition in scans. From what I've read there were conflicting opinions with his original injury as to whether surgery was required. If it was a full rupture then surgery is definitely required as you need your ACL to play any level of sport let alone professionally. The ACL (in the middle of the knee) and the PCL (at the back) are the cruciate ligaments that form a cross to prevent the knee from being able to twist the wrong way (hence the name cruciate). After choosing the non-surgical option they must have done further MRIs that showed that the ligament was connected and presumably had increased in size/condition. Subsequent to returning he's injured it again, this time regardless of whether it's a complete rupture or not they'll have to go with surgery. Thing is there are many options for the surgery itself, each with pros and cons. Generally the best option for long term outcome is a graft using either hamstring or patella with a very slight reduction in recurrence percentage when using patella. Other options can be to use a donor (cadaver), but there is a higher chance or recurrence, though the benefit is there's no need for rehabilitation of the hamstring/patella. In my case I used my own hamstring, and subsequently suffered multiple hamstring injuries during my recovery from doing relatively mundane tasks. Hamstring seems to be mostly ok now which has helped to get the knee recovery back on track. There's also loads of different conjecture around the best angles for the graft to be attached, it's complicated stuff and having gone through some of it you can understand how his situation has played out like it did. Hindsight is always 20/20 but of course now we know they should have opted for surgery originally. He'd have missed the rest of this season as a minimum but given how he's not been himself simce returning that wouldn't have been such an issue anyway.