Just been listening to Eze interview. Sounds like him and NF have been leaning on one another to progress. Ferguson sounds like a good guy. Just hope he makes it back.

Or added to the piggy bank should Palace table a bid for Conor Gallagher

I think if we're being sanguine, we will be very lucky to get much of a return from Ferguson whatever we've ended up paying.

I understand his original injury was knee ligament-related and, whether ACL or MCL or something else, those are serious injuries for a professional athlete with significant recovery times. That, towards the end of his recovery he then incurred a somewhat serious thigh injury suggests either he was rushing back too quickly (which I find unlikely with a competent medical staff supervising him) or, more likely, the latter was a compensation injury which as much as anything else underlines the seriousness of the original knee injury.

He then tears his Achilles which, quite possibly, was also compensation-related (that being where you instinctively change your natural movement to compensate for weakness caused by another existing injury) but compensation-related or not, the Achilles injury is serious all by itself, with up to a year's recovery time (and more likely to be longer than shorter given all the other injuries and thus stresses on his legs that Ferguson has had to deal with).

Bottom line: Ferguson has dealt with not one but two injuries that barely a decade or two ago would have been career-ending. Modern surgical techniques have improved to the extent that that's no longer automatically the case, but it's wishful thinking to imagine that we'll ever see the player we thought we were buying. I'm not saying it's totally impossible but it is very, very unlikely. If Ferguson recovers to become even a regular Premiership player and nothing more, he'll be a medical miracle.

Honestly, and sadly, my best guess is that if he battles his way back to match fitness at all, he will always be an injury risk simply because damage in the past begets fragility in the future and, quite likely, his body simply won't withstand the rigours of the game at the very highest level. He does seem like a nice guy and he's really been dealt a brutal hand by the fates of football. It is, though, unlikely he's ever going to be a significant part of our future unless he seriously bucks the odds.

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.