Knee injuries, not muscle injuries.
I'm no doctor, but I'd think it's easier to predict the likelyhood of a knee injury striking again by studying it. Might've simply been a bit of recklessness with his first return, rather than some proneness for an injury.
I don't care much about him being out for 2 years. The only worry would be: whether his knee will handle it or not.
For 9 million we could get:
A) an average Milito sub like Denis
B) a talented striker far from ready for big-time and without a proven record at such level
I'd rather place my bet on Rossi's knee if some top doctors/sports physiologists would provide significiant reason to believe that his problem was temporary.
And I can't insist enough that the decisive factor of my support for going for Rossi is that we will check his knee thoroughly before agreeing to any deal.
Lot of people talk of it being a "risky deal", but can I just ask you: has the past two years shown that we can afford to make a non-risky deal? I don't see even a nearly "risk free" striker in mid or early 20's out there who we could get for 9 million (remember, we're talking of Inter quality). Compared to other guys available at such price, Rossi with reasonable assurance that his knee can hold it, would be a bargain. Moneyball.
Its a more severe version of the injury Samuel has suffered twice at Inter (cruciate ligament ones), or sort of the same as Ronaldo's big injuries....
With two in a row like that, players rarely recover. People have been known to quit football for less.
Its also the same injury Kerlon has now suffered 3? 4? of?
The fact that its happened twice in the same knee concurrently worries me the most. What also worries me is the fact that he had another surgery a few weeks ago, so obviously its more complicated than first expected.
Anyone who calls Rossi 'risk free' is, tbh, an idiot. 9mil + what, 3m a season salary? 4 year contract means we're paying 9/4 = 2.25m + 6m year salary = near enough 8.5million a season for 4 years for Rossi? Risk free my ass. The only players at Inter who we pay more than that for right now are, off the top of my head, Milito, Sneijder, Zanetti, possibly Cambiasso. Guarin is close but not quite there, Handanovic is close too but not quite there.
No, pass. There's a fucking REASON why his valuation has fallen from 40 million to 9 million in 12 months. Its because he'll possibly never be able to fucking run again.
Also, the problem here, even if he does completely recover, its not obvious whether it will happen again or not. The doctors cant predict it (they've declared Michael Owen free of injury prone problems thousands of times, for example) - its not like you just look at the cruciate ligaments under a microscope to see if they are healthy or not.
This injury COULD retire him...
---------- Post added at 03:55 ---------- Previous post was at 03:47 ----------
see:
http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/39/3/127.full
