Leeds United have had to deal with a fair few long-term injuries already this season, and Daniel Farke has finally shared a new update on the fitness of Ilia Gruev.
Gruev was forced to undergo surgery on a knee injury he suffered in the 1-1 draw at Norwich City back in October and so has been unavailable ever since.
His injury came just a matter of days after Ethan Ampadu was ruled out for 10 weeks due to a knee issue of his own, though the Leeds captain has come off the bench in the last two.
Dan James, Manor Solomon, Largie Ramazani, Max Wober and Junior Firpo have all also missed several weeks of the season as a result of injuries at different times.
But it is Gruev who has been on the sidelines the longest and so he can only watch on as the likes of Ao Tanaka and Joe Rothwell assert themselves in the team.
Farke sets new injury timeline for Ilia Gruev at Leeds
The initial recovery period set for Gruev’s injury was just simply set at ‘several months’ and it is now almost three months since he picked up the problem.
Gruev has been back out on the grass running in recent weeks but Farke confirmed earlier this month that he still wasn’t close to being back for full contact training.
However, Farke has now shared a more accurate timescale as to when that might happen in his latest press conference.
Gruev is looking like he could be back with the rest of the squad at some point next month, with a return to proper match action likely to be a few weeks after.
He said: “Hopefully Ilia Gruev can also chip in not too long ago. He won’t return in December back to team training but hopefully at some point in January. We’ve coped with this situation really well but to be that perfect to be without them both [Ampadu and Gruev].
“I can also mentioned Max Wober and junior Firpo, we’ve handled it pretty well. We are not good enough to allow ourselves to give one per cent less, but we are working on this and are in a good position in the league.”
What other injury updates did Farke have?
With a period of five games in just 15 days starting on Saturday, any kind of minor injury at this stage of the season would see players miss multiple matches.
And joining Gruev and Firpo on the treatment table ahead of Oxford United could well be defensive duo Wober and Pascal Struijk.
Wober is still struggling with knee pain and had to pull out of training for Leeds on Wednesday, making it unlikely he plays at the weekend.
Ever-present Pascal Struijk is also nursing some hamstring tightness, with Farke rating his chances of featuring 50/50.
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