BRENTFORD medical staff are optimistic that Lewis Macleod, the former Rangers midfielder who has been sidelined with a serious knee injury since last October, will be ready to return to the first team squad at Griffin Park by September.
The 22-year-old has suffered a series of setbacks since moving to the Sky Bet Championship club in a £1.3 million transfer from Ibrox back in December 2014.
He played 12 games for Dean Smith’s side last season, but injured himself after coming on as a substitute in the second half of a West London derby match against Queens Park Rangers at Loftus Road in October.
Macleod was dogged by similar problems during the two and half seasons which he spent in Ally McCoist's team between 2012 and 2014.
He sustained medial ligament damage in a Third Division game against Montrose and suffered an adverse reaction to a viral infection which affected the muscles around his heart - and recovered on each occasion.
Neil Greig, head of medical at Brentford, is hopeful the former Scotland Under-21 internationalist will be able to take some part in pre-season training and could rejoin the squad early in the 2017/18 campaign.
“As you’d expect with any of our long-term injured players, Lewis Macleod’s summer has largely been spent at the training ground working with medical and performance staff,” Greig told the official Brentford website.
“He had a short break at the end of the season to recharge and has now been back working hard for the last three weeks.
"Lewis has, what we hope will be, his final review with the consultant next week, where we hope to able to agree his final progressions towards team training.
“This, however, is only one part of a complex jigsaw with injuries such as Lewis’s and there are a number of key objective physical markers that he needs to achieve before making a graduated return to the squad.
“It is realistic for us to predict that Lewis will take a monitored part in elements of the squad pre-season training. However, the final stages of his reconditioning will run alongside that through pre-season in order for us to achieve that physical gains that Lewis needs to perform well again in the Championship.
“With that in mind, it’s unrealistic to predict that Lewis will be a fully fit member of the squad for the first league game in August, with a return to the squad at some point in September being more likely.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel