Amazing to see him back. What a striker at 35!
You do not sign Zlatan. The Zlatan signs you.
The tweet says: "
@Ibra_official has signed a new one-year contract with
#MUFC!"
Hope he is not rushing through his rehabilitation process though.
He almost certainly is.
I snapped my ACL 25th February and had the best part of a month resting it and getting the swelling down. Then I did intensive physio and gym rehab across April and May with surgery on 25th May.
The prehab is as crucial as the rehab. A swollen knee is risky to operate on and can do more damage. This being said he might not have had the bone bruising I had or the meniscus damage and his physical condition would have been peak at injury so let's assume limited need for prehab and better equipment to help swelling.
Either way, Zlatan snapped his ACL and PCL and was in surgery a mere week after the injury. This is unquestionably quick and high risk for surgery. The plus side is there was unlikely to be any muscle wastage.
He would almost certainly have more time for rehab, constant physio and perfect diet. So the surgery risks were probably mitigated.
The risk is he over does it. Assuming he had a hamstring graft his hamstrings will require significant work to get back to strength, as fewer tendons doing all the work.
Additionally these grafts for the knee require care to avoid becoming too lax. This is where the rerupture risk comes in.
My expectation looks something like this. Running 3 months after surgery... I'm pretty close to this point, but not rushing to do it.
Even once running it's then 6 months of building up the movement and twists. So say 2-3 months into this period before should even be doing leg extension and kicking work.
All in Zlatan should not be back before February. But allowing for world class care etc maybe he could be back December, but every month earlier is a higher risk of re-rupture.
Personally I find the whole thing bizarre. I hope we have sensible contract provisions or otherwise are confident on the marketing/ coaching/ team spirit value.
Even if he gets back there is no guarantee of him being at the same level.