Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but, the reports at the weekend that suggested Ianis Hagi has an outside chance of playing again this season are wide of the mark, by quite some bit.
Having undergone anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) surgery in January the 23-year old was ruled out for the rest of the campaign by Giovanni van Brocnkhorst, however, a story emerged over the last few days claiming that he is already “60%” fit.
Originating from his homeland in Romania, Playsport say Rangers put their hands in their pockets to get the best treatment possible for the playmaker, claiming they paid out £68,000 for his operation and £21,000-per-month on rehabilitation, but the nature of his injury isn’t as simple as throwing time and money at it to speed up recovery.
When a surgery grafts either a part of the hamstring or patella tendon into the knee joint it takes time before it develops a blood supply, this is usually at the 10-12 week period which for Hagi would have been at the end of April, until this point, patients aren’t allowed to do any running in case because it puts too much stress on the graft.
Best case scenario is that he is 60% though his rehabilitation protocol which would make more sense, he will now be undertaking a walk/run programme to gradually build up his tolerance and, at this stage, it is all about making sure he doesn’t suffer a setback rather than improving fitness.
It’s such a shame that he got injured when he did, he has never been able to play in his preferred number ten position behind a striker and the system that we now play would, when Joe Aribo went off with Nigeria, Hagi finally looked like he was going to get his chance only to be hit with the worst luck possible.
Hopefully, the Romanian international will be approaching full fitness in time for pre-season so that he can hit the ground running next season, we’ve missed his ability to pick a pass and produce game winning moments when chances are few and far between and also his willingness to shoot from anywhere, him and Aaron Ramsey in the same team would have been an awful lot of fun.