Real Madrid's early injury problems: seven out
Fans are still waiting to see the impact of the summer revolution as Zidane's new recruits, and some familiar faces, fight to recover from injury.
It has bene a busy summer for Real Madrid, not only on the field of play and the transfer market, but also in the treatment room. With the club confirming on Tuesday that Brahim Diaz had relapsed, this sees the list of those first team players out injured grow to eight.
Hazard, Mendy, Jovic...
The promising young Spaniard who joined from Manchester City had picked up an injury on his left leg right at the start of preseason, on July 14. When it appeared that he had completely recovered from this, another occured, keeping him out for three to four weeks. Manager Zinedine Zidane is keen to have the player form part of his plans but, as yet, he has been unable to have a run at creating his place in the side.
In between these two injuries of Brahim there have been another six players taken out of Zidane's early options. The first of these was suffered on July 24 as Marco Asensio kissed goodbye to most of the season after ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus in the preseason friendly against Arsenal. Just a day later, new signing Ferland Mendy pulled up, having played only 90 minutes of the summer's preparatory games.
Further blows came as another new recruit, Luka Jovic, along with first choice goalkeeper, Thibaut Courtois, picked up respective knocks in challenges against Atlético's Jan Oblak in the New Jersey derby and with Mariano during training at Valdebebas. Last Wednesday we received news of Rodrygo and on Friday the biggest of the summer signings, Eden Hazard, was confirmed as out of action.
With just one game played in LaLiga - a confidence building victory in Vigo - Madrid has seen eight injuries to seven players, which has already seen an accumulation of 125 days without playing or training. Five of the eight injuries (both for Brahim along with Mendy, Rodrygo and Hazard) have been muscular, while the remainder (Asensio, Jovic and Courtois) can be classified as bone injuries. This has seen some fingers pointed in the direction of the French preparation guru, Grégory Dupont, who came in to improve the conditioning of the squad.