Kevin Strootman’s surgeon assures the Roma midfielder “will reach 100 per cent physical condition again”.
The Dutch international has played just 339 minutes in the last two seasons, as he’s been plagued with a series of knee problems.
The 26-year-old ruptured his cruciate ligament against Napoli in 2014, and returned for six games last season.
Kevin Strootman’s surgeon assures the Roma midfielder “will reach 100 per cent physical condition again”.
The Dutch international has played just 339 minutes in the last two seasons, as he’s been plagued with a series of knee problems.
The 26-year-old ruptured his cruciate ligament against Napoli in 2014, and returned for six games last season.
However, he was then struck down by Cyclops Syndrome, sidelining him for the rest of the season, before a second cruciate operation in September of last year.
“It wasn’t difficult to operate on Kevin Strootman,” Pierpaolo Mariani explained to Centro Suono Sport.
“It was difficult to plan the operation. The player had doubts, he was a bit intimidated but once he was convinced to have surgery it was all plain sailing.
“I can now say with certainty that Strootman will reach 100 per cent physical condition again. Although he’s not being used much right now, he’ll return to normal levels, as good as before.
“The talk coming from Trigoria is that the player returning is a real washing machine – Strootman’s nickname – a sign that he’s taking full advantage of the recovery process.
“It wasn’t the most difficult operation I’ve done on a professional footballer, but I felt so much pressure because of everything that had happened previously.
“The most complicated was [Damiano] Tommasi’s, talking of Roma.
“From a clinical point of view, the Dutchman is healed. Now maybe there’s fear about encountering problems in a match situation.
“I’m convinced that he’ll fully return to being a great player at Roma though. The long recovery time is due to the fact the athlete had been out for a year with the previous injury.
“As a result of that, his muscle tone had dropped quite a bit, so it’s obvious he has to get much more fit to get onto the pitch.
“What I remember about the aftermath is that he’d already planned everything, I’ve rarely seen that kind of determination.
“Many athletes feel down the next day, Kevin was the complete opposite.”