Yerson Mosquera successfully underwent knee surgery on Tuesday and now begins a recovery process teammates Enso Gonzalez and Sasa Kalajdzic are currently following.
The Colombian injured the medial collateral ligament (MCL) and anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his knee during Wolves’ Premier League match at Aston Villa in September, and the swelling needed to decrease prior to surgery.
This week the 23-year-old’s operation was completed in Manchester, beginning his journey back to full fitness, and he can cite Gonzalez and Kalajdzic as references during his recovery.
Phil Hayward, head of high performance, said: “Everything went really well with Yerson. The surgeon was very pleased with how the procedure went. Yerson will be home for a couple of days now as he recovers, and we’ll see him at home during that time.
“Once he’s feeling better and the inflammation has settled down, he’ll be able to get up and about more, and he’ll be back into the club probably next week to start the early stages of his rehab.
“He’s got a long journey ahead of him, but Yerson’s an ultra-positive guy and he’s taken everything in his stride. He’s already talking about being back to the grass and is really looking forward to getting going. With him, it’ll be a case of us holding back a little bit because he’ll be desperate to kick on as quickly as he can do.”
Mosquera had played every minute of Premier League action prior to his injury, and while he’s highly unlikely to feature again this term, Hayward says targets are based on functional and strength goals, rather than a set time period.
“It’s really early days yet and I don’t want to put a definitive time scale on it, but everything went very well with the surgery, and over the next days and weeks, as we see how the knee has responded to the initial surgery, we’ll start to really map out what the next weeks and months of the rehab look like.
“That will ultimately give us a long-term target in terms of an estimated return to training timeframe, but it’s very fluid and can change in either direction, so we tend not to set strict timelines. It’s a case of seeing how players progress based more off functional progression and achieving objectives with their rehab – trying to set goals with functional targets, rather than time-based ones.”
Back in July Gonzalez also suffered an injury to the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee while representing Paraguay at the Olympic Games in Paris, and he’s progressing well, according to Hayward.
He said: “Enso’s doing great. He’s in the gym a lot now, beginning his strength phase. He’s a few months ahead of Yerson and is progressing really well. He responded really well to the initial surgery and is back in the gym working hard, so he’s right on track with where we’d expect him to be.”
Similarly, Kalajdzic has been recovering from an anterior cruciate ligament injury in his right knee since February. The Austrian was injured while on loan at Eintracht Frankfurt but had surgery in London and has since been recovering in Wolverhampton.
“Sasa’s getting towards the end. He’s back on the grass which is great for him – it’s great to see him back out there. He’s now starting to get to the more functional aspects of his rehab. Over the next few months we’ll be integrating more ball work into what he does and then hopefully get him back into training and matches in the not too distant future.”
