Detailed injury information on Southampton loan player released

The English media cover footballers being injured, of course they do, but nowhere close to the extent of their Spanish colleagues.

In all fairness, that’s because more information is released in Spain. Whereas here someone will have a foot injury and clubs refuse to give out any further information, sometimes citing patient confidentiality as a reason, in Spain the precise nature of which part of the foot and a full medical diagnosis, and sometimes prognosis, would be released.

Newspapers such as Marca have experienced sport doctors write columns for them and it’s all a long way from ‘so what is a metatarsal then?’.

This brings us to Sofiane Boufal, on loan from Southampton to Celta Vigo and out with an ankle injury. El Desmarque report, backed up by the club’s own medical report, the player has a ‘posterior tibialis tenosynovitis’.

What’s that? Take it away Saint Luke’s medical resource: ‘The posterior tibialis tendon runs along the inside of the foot. It connects the calf muscle (posterior tibialis muscle) to bones on the inside of the foot. It helps maintain the arch of the foot. It also gives you stability when you move. Posterior tibialis tenosynovitis is when this tendon becomes inflamed or torn.’

It’s not thought to be serious, and the Southampton owned player has returned to training on Thursday, after missing the match against Valencia.

This is obviously good news, Boufal has an assist and goal to his name over his past two matches so will want to continue the good form.

From Southampton’s perspective they’ll want him playing, it helps value and any remote chance of him returning to the Premier League club, but they won’t want Celta Vigo to push their luck.