Andy Cook and his future at City (with Poll)

To save confusion what actually happened was Alexander tweaked the role of Pointon and the mercurial Sarcevic returned to the fray, playing him alongside Pointon in a two behind the striker in a 3-4-2-1. That coupled with Smallwood now having two able runners available alongside him in Patto or Khela. Could Cook have fit into this great spell of football is open to debate but please enough of this nonsense that we somehow changed how we played because Cook picked up his injury.

 

Don’t think he’d had a serious ACL injury before doing any of that though, did he?

 

No. But I didn't realise it was still 1965 and a cruciate tear was the end of your career.

Have a Google. There's literally a huge amount of players that have recovered from the same injury and either returned to the same level or even surpassed it.

That said, neither did O Rourke or Hanson. It was only their ages that were used to make a point, hence the Windass example.

 

A lot of confusion over Cook been 34 years old. Seen 'given his age' a few times a factor for his recovery.

34 years old is not old!!!! And with diet, nutrition, medical available now we are seeing more and more players play into their late 30s and sometimes 40s at a pro level.

 

Does that still apply if they did their cruciate in their 30s?

 

It did for Zlatan Ibrahimovic at 35.

He went on to win a serie A with Milan after recovering from knee surgery.

Also look up Coutois and Neymar, another two 30 somethings that have successfully overcome ACL injuries to continue playing at the highest level.

There's plenty more too but to stop the conversation going around in circles I'll leave it there as I feel I've made my point.

 

Yup, fair enough. It was a genuine question which you’ve answered. Hopefully Cookie will get the same level of care as all those superstars.

 

And if he does get back his fitness to the Andy Cook of old I wouldn't bet against him being our leading goal scorer again, lets hope the players around him contribute more as we've seen them do in his absence.

 

Although we all loved Bobby Campbell he hardly did himself any favours with his off field antics he even admits it himself in his book, and I'm not sure we should be looking like for like with regards players of past era's and the modern day footballers.

 

Not an out of character post from said poster even liked by Mr negative .

 

That's how I believe Alexander will gradually involve Andy Cooks return, last 20 minutes even if were not requiring a goal, he certainly won't be in the starting 11 for his first game back.

 

The only scientific evidence I can find says the opposite to what you're saying:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9339063/

'The outcome after ACL reconstruction (ACLR) is in general disappointing with unacceptable number of athletes that do not return to pre-injury level of sports, high re-injury rates, early development of osteoarthritis and shorter careers.'


This one is about American NFL players, but they're still athletes. And it looks like positions in which players have to pivot in motion [which I expect our version of football is similar] are more adversely effected post ACL reconstruction.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8905068/

'Overall, 312 NFL players were included in this study, and 174 (55.8%) returned to play. Of the eligible players, only 28.5% (n = 59/207) remained in the league 3 years postinjury. Within the first 3 years postinjury, players played in fewer games (8.7 vs 13.7; P < .0001), started in fewer games (3.0 vs 8.3; P < .0001), had lower AVs (1.5 vs 4.3; P < .0001)'


Both papers are from 2022, so relatively recent. There's always exceptions, hopefully Cooke is one of them and he's back to being as good as he was before the injury. No doubt that medical science is constantly improving and these type of injuries don't end careers like they once did. But, overall I don't think you can say that an ACL isn't going to seriously impinge on returning to a previous performance level at any age.

 

Cracking read.

 

Knowing Andy Cook I wouldn't be surprised to see him involved late September.