So the same paper that triumphantly declared that Steven Fletcher would definitely be fit for Wolves against Everton is now saying our record signing is a ‘big worry.’
Fletcher at best! At worst, his foot needs lopping off.
Typical that the hideously inaccurate article is the one which got all our hopes up and the truth is that Fletcher is missing both of Scotland’s Euro qualifiers.
It’s just typical full stop isn’t it?
You’d think the Express & Star would know better than anyone not to randomly speculate about a star player, and the need to reconcile an indirect quote with a bit of medical fact.
After all, one of their sports reporters – who now scribes in a north east newsdesk somewhere – told me that Barry Holmes was sacked from Molineux for injecting three painkilling injections in Michael Kightly’s ankle. All three needles were inserted in the wrong place! (hence lengthy mysterious no-show after Cambridge cup win)
It makes you wonder how ‘bruised’ Fletcher’s foot really is. It made me wonder if he’d broken a metatarsal after hearing he had to yank his boot off to ease the throbbing once subbed against Stoke.
My prognosis may well be laughable, but no less believable than a bruised foot, which has now taken three-and-a-half weeks (and counting) to heal. Some bruise.
So after passing the latest orange billboard outside Queen Street, I thought I’d check the club’s official injury page on their website for up-to-the-minute news on the player.
How strange then, that Steven Fletcher’s name hasn’t been mentioned on the site since August 24th.
Hmm.
I suppose the club have been so busy extolling the renaissance of SEB and his insatiable appetite for goals that they haven’t had time to tell us how the £6.5 million man is.
I can understand this of course. Why wouldn’t you want to bury a month-long mystery injury under a far more joyous story, which has got our juices flowing to such an extent that we barely remember what Fletcher looks like?
I mean, the Doyle and Sylvan partnership has never looked so good anyway, right? Bring on Fulham, with or without him.
Well excuse me as I temper my enthusiasm and seek a simple answer to a simple question:
What is wrong with Steven Fletcher?
Is it a bruised foot as in a Dean Richards ‘bruised thigh’ which was closer to an amputation job? (according to his local car dealership)
Is it a bruised foot as in a Joleon Lescott minor injury, like the ‘minor’ knee surgery in the summer of 2003?
Or is it just a bruised foot?
The answer is probably undisclosed somewhere, in an undisclosed news section in an undisclosed website, which contains all of the undisclosed transfer fees we have ever paid out.
I get the feeling that I’m in the minority to get flustered by all of this. Take away Sylvan’s two goal start to the season and I think we’d all want answers, wouldn’t we?
Hrm, interesting. I can’t fathom the concept of not trusting a physio. I’m not sure you guys are aware, I’m 10 months post op from an ACL Knee Reconstruction. I basically put my soul in charge of my physio (absolute champ, turns out he did his postgrad study in knee recons), but the thought for a moment that he might have made things worse… shudder.
Wolves have a sad history of “big money” signings becoming fully paid up members of BUPA within a short time of arriving at Molineux!
Tony Daley
Geoff Thomas
Keith Curle
Dean Richards
Adrian Williams
To name just a few!!
Could be worse. Perth Glory signed Socceroo Stan Lazaridis as a marquee player (ie big $$$), only for him to get banned for a positive drug test (for a hair loss product no less)
http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,22316501-23215,00.html
He was still more useful than Charlie Miller !
Never forget Neil Masters. Played 1.2 games i think.
Hi Martin. Funny you mention masters as I’ve been mulling over a wolves injured eleven for the blog and masters was. the 1st name in my mind. But what a 1.5games it was! Leave this thought with me!
Mike O’Grady was another…who remembers him?
Neil Masters anyone?
I wish I had your physio t’OM! I’ve been going to ACL classes at New Cross since June 2009 and my knee is still nowhere near healing. Good old NHS eh? I need to get out to Australia!!
I’m just relaying what a former Wolves reporter told me about Kightly’s injury back in 2008. It was, according to him, fact that he couldn’t relay to us.
I trust all the physios at Molineux today, just not so sure I trust the reports of a bruised foot, which has got to be the worst case of bruised foot in bruised foot history!
For the record, the knee is brilliant. I even played squash (at full tilt) on Sunday, have started cricket training and am running up to about 3km at a time.
It still amazes me that multi million pound machines are being looked after by physios. The remit of these guys is rehabilitation. A physician is required to diagnose issues and request suitable scans, radiographs and surgery if needed. Not a physio. You wouldn’t trust the fella you get your tyres from to correct a problem under the bonnet of your Ferrari would you. A top doc could be employed for about 100-200k a year. It’s about time Wolves invested in this, which is probably a fraction of what someone like George Elokobi is on. Stop relying on a sponge man to maintain elite sport stars! If you told an NFL fan about the set up in football they wouldn’t believe you.
No Ben, you’re not the only one who is worried. We now have to wrap Doyle and SEB in cotton wool as we’ve only got Bent for cover. Will we go 451 for the next two games or stick with 442? If the latter, it’s very likely we’re going to see Bent.
Get well soon Fletch!
Wolves have a team doctor, Dr Matthew Perry. From the official site under Backroom Staff:
“Matt joined Wolves as Academy doctor in 2001/2 and the first team the next year. He also works as a GP in Albrighton Medical Practice.
He attends training two mornings a week, travels with the team and attends all first team games, home and away.
He has a Masters degree in Sport and Exercise Medicine and last year worked with the England Under 19 team.
Matt grew up in Albrighton and went to his first Wolves game aged seven in 1965.
He has been going regularly since and if he wasn’t sitting on the bench would be with his family in the South Bank. His roles involve managing on field emergencies, treating injuries as well as looking after the general health needs of the senior players and screening examinations for new players.”
I did hear that he keeps a pair of Wolves underpants on a hook on the back of a door.
Now if they are used…………………….
FOWB
Well that’s me told.
Does beg the question though if we’ve been employing a doc why was the physio giving pain killing injections and why do we never see this doc?
Steven Fletcher’s injury is indeed worrying, and it is clearly more than a bruised foot; but, if the player has a chance of playing, the club doesn’t want to advertise to our opponents exactly what’s wrong with him.
Since Steve Morgan took over our medical and fitness services have become state of the art, and it will not be for lack of proper attention and care if Fletcher has a niggling injury.
The injuries are due to the rough, tough games against Stoke and Newcastle, in which both of our opponents started physical stuff, and then whinged when we stood up to them and wouldn’t let them bully us.
One of the things I like about Mick and Wolves is that we react like men. Unlike Shawcross, Barton, Enrique, etc., we don’t go around wildly accusing people and whinging like oversensitive prima donnas.
I agree Ben – I’d like to know what is going on with Fletcher. I admit lto laughing my ass off at Kenwyne Jones going off in the same game – maybe this is karma coming back to get me.
Am I right in thinking he actually came off the bench against Newcastle? (I was away this weekned and the MOTD coverage was laughable!) If this is the case then he was obviously given the go ahead to play by someone at the club – only for Scotland to send him home with the same injury a week and a half later?
Fletcher looked great first half against Stoke – I couldn’t wait to see him team up with Doyle. I just hope we haven’t signed an expensive crock!
But on the up side Doyle looks to be regaining fitness and touch from what i saw of the international game on Friday.
I really don’t think they’d have sent him off for a pointless trip to join the Scottish squad if they knew that there was no chance of him playing. The fact he was able to carry on playing a while after the tackle and thus the injury suggests that it isn’t such a major problem. However, his injury has taken a longer time to heal than they originally thought so it’s a bit more serious than they first thought. Quid pro quo.
No conspiracy theory required imho.
Stourbridge – yes he came on ten minutes or so into the second half.
I thought so! Funny how he was given the green light by our doctors only for the injury to come back a week later! Either Scotlands doctors can see something ours cant – or our doctors let him back into the action too soon.
Ben, in answer to your question, Fletcher looks like you………..a bit.
FOWB
Yes Clive, I recall you telling me I looked like the big eared, gappy toothed, receding centre forward a little while ago, you cheeky bleeder! Come to think of it, my broken toe isn’t half throbbing at the moment. The wife reckons its just a bruise, but what would she know?!
Actually i think Fletcher looks like the guy who played Jim out of ‘Taxi’ and the weirdo out of ‘Back to the future’.Nothing like your photos Ben.
Cheers Martin. You’re a gent! That guy Jim is a handsome chap though!
I don’t mean it in a bad way!!
Are you sure it’s your toe that’s throbbing?
I know men exaggerate, but a foot, or part thereof???
Hope you bought your Dad summat good for old farts day today!!
FOWB
The expression that it probably was just a bruising came from Mick McCarthy after the game.
Of course Wolves should have scanned his foot the next day, but maybe the swelling was not down yet and then it was off to Scotland. I’m not sure that anything wrong has been done by anyone here, but of course, as a supporter it’s easy to get upset when one of our best is out with injury.
But I do agree that Wolves information about the injuries are inadequat and sporadic. That makes the media prown to speculation as about the injury of Michael Kightly.
I bruised my foot and it took 8 weeks to heal properly, so wouldn’t surprise me if it was a bruised foot.
Harden up man !!
Paddy. I would guess there are reasons why the information Wolves release about injuries is sporadic. I work as a physiotherapist, not in football admittedly, but injuries like bone bruising and indeed anything linked to patella tendons are notoriously difficult to predict. It’s not an exact science. I imagine Wolves will be treating the injuries with all the technology at their disposal and then it all depends on the speed of the body’s capacity to heal. Also, as a Wolves fan I’m not sure it helps us to tell our rivals about how long our star players are out for!
Rhys, that puts me right, it’s not obviously something more than a bruised foot. To us a bruise is a bruise, but what is a bruise to medicos? “Bruised bone” sounds pretty scary, and doesn’t sound like it would heal in a few days.
This has surprised me too. A quick google search reveals that the recovery time can be many weeks, even months Here’s one of many examples:
“… periostitis (bone bruise) is a slow healing and painful exercise in patience. This condition often takes months, not weeks, to become tolerable.”
(http://en.allexperts.com/q/Orthopedics-980/2-bones-bruised-foot.htm)
Mick is always downplaying injuries. Doyle. Fletcher. It is just his way.
Yep, Tim, the manager is in a tricky position, isn’t he? He has to keep the media and the fans more or less happy, he doesn’t want to give away too much to the opposition, and he has to keep the player’s spirits up!
Nippy & Tim…I never have a problem with whatever Mick says. It’s the fact that the press take one comment in the immediate aftermath of the Stoke City game and run with it for a back page lead on the Monday, purely on the basis of that comment. So what happens next? No Fletcher for 3 weeks, the fans are gutted (well, I am) and absolutely nothing on the official website at all. Not one mention of his fitness. You literally only get (foot) next to Fletcher’s name on Gillette Soccer Saturday when the team news is coming in.
What’s the harm in just putting out a release saying it can take up to ‘x’ amount of months, but we’re hoping it will be better before that?
I’m reading that the club will say something about the injury later today (according to their twitter site) so I’ll watch this space!
Fletcher to have a pain killing injection in order to play on Saturday. Is that not just gonna make things worse in the long run??
What make sme laugh is that we have signed Bent as backup, but won’t be played , or even make the bench. Instead we are on about aggravating an existing injury. We all remember when Kightly was rushed back for a meaningless FA cup tie against Wimbledon don’t we?
All we can hope is that Doyle rattles one into the top corner like he did last night for the Republic.
Maybe then we wont even need to bring Fletcher on! Knowing our doctors they’ll probably put the injection in the wrong place anyway!
I remember when Peter Daniel got clattered by Tony Morley, the physio must have asked him to “run it off” as he tried to carry on …. he had broken his leg!