Injury data analyst Ben Dinnery has been sharing some insight into the injury that Aston Villa striker Wesley suffered back in January.
This comes after Dinnery recently made a guest appearance on the Birmingham Mail’s Claret & Blue Podcast where he spoke about a range of topics related to injuries in football.
On the topic of Wesley’s injury that he sustained on New Year’s Day, Dinnery had this to say.
He said: “This is predominantly affecting the anterior cruciate ligament, so when we talk about ‘mechanism of injury’, and that’s obviously the tackle coming in from the side there, and the anterior cruciate ligament actually acts as a stabiliser of the knee joint that attaches the femur/thighbone, to the shin/tibia, and that keeps things sort of nice and tight in there.
“Now obviously, the impact from the tackle stretched that ligament and caused that ligament to rupture, which in turn causes the instability. There’s also damage in and around the medial collateral ligament, so that’s the ligament on the inside of the knee, so rarely do we see ACL injuries happen in isolation.
“More often than not, there are always secondary complications and further damage in and around the joint, that might be around the medial ligament and also possibly, there’s a good chance that there was damage in and around the cartilage as well.”
As mentioned earlier, Wesley damaged his knee during Villa’s 2-1 win over Burnley at Turf Moor back in January in which the striker scored Villa’s opening goal.
During the match, a dangerous tackle from Burnley defender Ben Mee forced Wesley off the pitch who ultimately did not play another game in Villa’s 2019/20 campaign.
Before suffering this injury, the 23-year-old had scored five goals in the 21 Premier League appearances he had made for Villa (per Transfermarkt).
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TIF Thoughts on Ben Dinnery’s comments on Wesley’s injury…
It’s interesting to hear the finer details of Wesley’s knee injury from someone who specialises in football injuries. It’s a shame that Wesley missed the rest of Villa’s previous campaign but that just goes to show how serious his injury is.
Moving forward, everyone at Villa will undoubtedly be happy to see the Brazilian back in action for the club when he has fully recovered from his injury.