Neil Sullivan pens his regular blog for dcfc.co.uk from the Derby County medical room.
What a great few weeks it has been with the results on the pitch for Derby County.
We have witnessed some great performances as well as some dogged displays, with the most important thing to pick up the points and progress in the FA Cup - and from a medical point of view it was key to keep the players fit and on the pitch.
With the games coming so close together, the emphasis for the players was to recover as best they could, and then prepare for the next match.
With the exception of Mark O'Brien and Nathan Tyson, we were quite fortunate with the injuries. We had the usual bumps and bruises, as you would expect, but the squad contained pretty much the same players for all of the games.
Nathan picked up a minor niggle that kept him out of training for a few days in the West Ham United game, but he was back in training ahead of the FA Cup fixture with Crystal Palace last week. However, he has been laid low with a throat infection this week.
On the other hand, Mark suffered a major injury to his knee over the Christmas period. He twisted his knee in training and unfortunately he ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament. We were very fortunate to get a consultation with the knee specialist in London the following day, and even more fortunate that he was able to perform the surgery on the same day. Mark has now started the process of getting back to full fitness. It is a long process that will be full of ups and downs and a lot of very hard work, but as Mark keeps reminding us... he's been through worse!
This week saw Jeff Hendrick return to full training, so the treatment room is a very quiet place at the moment. Apart from Saul Deeney, Steven Davies is the only other player unavailable this weekend - and he is due to see the specialists again on Monday next week, hopefully with some positive news.
On The Funny Side
I don't want to be known for always picking on the players in this column, although you can probably tell that they let themselves down quite regularly....so today we have a member of the backroom staff to talk about.
George Polglass is one of our Academy Physiotherapists and to set the scene, he is considering getting on the property ladder.
George has found a property and was discussing a possible renovation in the medical room. He wanted to get a quote for some replacement windows and required some dimensions to type into the computer.
"How big are windows on a house?" he asked.
The room fell silent and we all looked at each other amazed at the question.
"All houses are different George" replied Matt Brown.
"Ok, how big are windows on a two bedroom house then?" was George's next question.
Sarah Beeney makes it look so easy, but maybe property renovation isn't for everyone.
