Ben Dinnery

Thu 23 December 2021 12:00, UK

Marvelous Nakamba’s return-to-play timeline suggests he may have torn his medial collateral ligament (MCL) at Aston Villa.

That is the view of injury expert Ben Dinnery, who runs the Premier Injuries site and has a background in medicine and data analysis.

Nakamba has not featured since suffering a knee injury in the 1-0 defeat to Liverpool on 11 December.

It was later confirmed that the 27-year-old would need surgery to correct the problem.

Steven Gerrard revealed last Friday (17 December) that the procedure had been a “success” and it will take him “12 to 16 weeks to recover”.

The Villa boss is currently without nine members of his squad through illness, injury or suspension.

Dinnery reveals that Villa’s estimation of how long Nakamba will be out of action tallies with his own data set for MCL injuries.

“With every long-term injury, it’s difficult to give a definitive timeline,” he told Football Insider’s Adam Williams.

“We don’t know a great deal in terms of how Nakamba will respond, how quickly he’ll heal.

“Some might have felt that it was season-ending. This is always what people jump to when it’s a ligament injury.

“People always seem to default to the ACL because that’s the profile one.

“But Gerrard spoke initially with a specialist and then decided they were going to treat it surgically.

“That 12 to 16-week estimate after he’s gone under the knife suggests that it could be the medial collateral ligament.

“That tends to heal quite well with conservative, non-surgical treatment unless it’s a grade three, which is why he may have gone under the knife.

“That 12 to 14-week estimate is bang-on in terms of the data we have collected.”

Nakamba has 14 appearances to his name across all competitions this term.

This site revealed before his injury in October that the Zimbabwean is a target for Newcastle United.

In other news, Alan Hutton backs Aston Villa to seal deal for “sensational” Kourtney Hause upgrade as offer reported.