Injuries are an unfortunate part of sport that almost every player will need to deal with, but you do start to worry about things when a player approaches the end of their career.
Gerard Pique is approaching his 34th birthday and he’s just been ruled out with a long term knee injury, so there will be concerns about him when he returns.
He’s never been blessed with pace anyway, but an injury like this could make it tougher for him to compete at the highest level so Barcelona will need to accelerate any plans for a potential replacement.
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Catalan outlet CCMA have also reported on Pique’s current situation and his expected return date and it sounds like this is more bad news for Ronald Koeman.
The defender has been advised not to get surgery on his right knee, so it means he has to receive some more conservative treatment instead.
As a result he’s expected to miss at least four months, so Barca may be forced into the transfer market in January to find another option.
That won’t be easy due to a lack of finances, while they’ve also reached a point where another short term fix isn’t going to cut it anymore either so it’s just adding to the problems that Koeman needs to figure out.