Sam Allardyce has been questioned about Michael Owen’s latest pseudo injury to his groin, and the Newcastle manager has tried to clarify the position with Michael’s injury.
While the groin can be managed with exercises at the moment, that doesn’t mean that at some point during the season it doesn’t turn into a hernia problem that will need an operation to fix it.
Michael Owen – groin injury could develop into a hernia
Sam talked about Michael today:
“Anyone can get a tight groin and it can lead to a hernia,” “But what you do is that you make sure you manage it so it doesn’t turn into oneâ€
“We can certainly do prevention on Michael in terms of that scenario but that doesn’t mean it can’t end up there with an operation. It can do. But this week’s scan is clear, the player is confident and he’s fit for Sunday.”
” After that we hope Michael will have a clean bill of health but you never know what might happen.”
There’s nobody better than Sam and his team for managing this kind of situation as Sam is probably the leading advocate in the Premiership on Injury prevention and rehabilitation. It certainly would be good to get a lot of games out of Michael this season. Sam has already got Owen on special exercises to strengthen his hamstrings, which have been prone to injury in the past.
Owen is now also undertaking extended warm-up exercises to minimize the groin problem, but the longer he remains on the pitch the greater the danger of aggravating his groin becomes.
Sam continued:
“We just have to manage the situation and hopefully we can do that very well between us,”
“It’s the old adage about one game at a time. It’s too early to say yet but I would hope Michael could play 40 games this season. That’s down the road, though. I can’t see that far into the future.â€
“We all hope he will be more sustainable than ever before but Michael hasn’t had an extended run of games for a long time so there has to be some element of doubt about whether he’s going to be able to play 40 games.”
It remains to be seen if Big Sam and his team can manage Michael’s physical condition to ensure he becomes less injury prone and it’s little wonder that Sam and the Newcastle staff are spending a lot of time on Michael. He has proved he can be a match winner at any level, and he can become an extremely important player for Newcastle this season.
Sam continued:
“With the tightening of his groin I thought it was best to pull him out of the firing line last Monday,” “If he’d stayed on and it had extended to tearing the abductor muscle we wouldn’t be having this debate about groins and hernias. He’d just be out injured.”
So there you have it. Seems to us that it’s not a big problem but of course people are concerned about his availability for England. But as far as Newcastle is concerned we also have our other small striker, Nigerian Oba Martins, who needs playing time as well as Michael.
It would be good if we can keep both players happy at the club because they are both potential match winners.
Comments welcome.
3 comments so far
Lamesley Mag
Sep 22, 2007 at 10:41 AM
Comment #1Martins will improve by being around good players like Owen and Viduka.
Only hope Owen doesn’t break down injured after Martins leaves for the African Nations Cup in January!
Graeme
Sep 22, 2007 at 11:03 AM
Comment #2If Owen is going to break down, you can GUARANTEE it will be just after Martins departs for the ANC competition – Sods Law!!!! If there is any doubt he needs an op – the international break is the ideal time to get it sorted, while we have cover. Sorry England, the club has to come first on this one.
Callum
Sep 22, 2007 at 5:16 PM
Comment #3If SA keeps picking an tired or injured Owen over Martins, it wont just be the african nations martins will leave for in january, it’ll be newcastle forever.