Ream and Cairney Update

This may be posted elsewhere but I may have missed it.

Jokanovic gives updates on Tom Cairney and Tim Ream
Slavisa Jokanovic has revealed what the injury problem with Ream is and when he could return for Fulham
Slavisa Jokanovic has revealed what the injury problem with Ream is and when he could return for Fulham

Slavisa Jokanovic has given an update on Tom Cairney and Tim Ream - revealing that the American defender has been struggling with a back problem.

Last season's Player of the Year hasn't featured once for Fulham this campaign having suffered the injury in pre-season, and despite the head coach being hopeful he would be back before the Tottenham Hotspur game last month, it looks like he'll be without him for some weeks yet.

Ream hasn't been able to work with the squad for a number of weeks and Jokanovic is currently unable to put a time frame on his return, although the last news he had from his medical team was 'positive'.

Cairney, meanwhile, is still continuing his recovery from an ankle injury he suffered in the 4-2 win over Burnley and won't be fit for the trip to Manchester City, with Jokanovic saying that they are still assessing both his and Neeskens Kebano's injuries.

He told football.london: "Ream has some kind of back problem and we didn't find any solution for it at the moment.

"Right now, he's a few weeks without working with the team and at the end, the last information that I have is positive and I cannot tell you exactly, but we hope he will be available soon to start working with the team.


(Image: Daniel Hambury/PA Wire)
"When we are talking about our way to play football and building up for the team, I lost two really important players in this part of the game, Tim Ream and Tom Cairney are most important players for this part of the game

"But for another side, I don't want to compare the quality of my players, but these players know what we want to play and what is mechanism for the team and these players naturally move around the pitch.


(Image: Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
"New players, without making any comparisons, need time to learn and I need time to teach them what is positional play of my team and how we want to start, how we attack, what is our starting defensive position when we lost the ball, if we are not in good position we can pay the expensive price like we paid in some games at the start of the Premier League."

 

So I guess my question is: Why in the bloody hell does it take a month and a half to find out what a player's injury issue is?

 

It's out of the NHL's injury disclosure playbook.

 

Back issues can be very hard to diagnose. My daughter had back pain during her sophomore year in high school. The doctors treated her with physical therapy for her back for months and she kept complaining the pain in her back was getting worse not better throughout the treatment. The doctors finally correctly diagnosed the problem was with her hip and the related back pain was stemming from the hip injury because the back muscles were trying to compensate for the weakness in the hip. Funny thing was that all her pain was in her back and none in her hip but after she completed the physical therapy for her hip the back pain finally went away. In total I think she went through somewhere between three to four months worth of physical therapy before getting relief.

 

Ream's back in training according to the Fulham website. Good news.

 

Tim Ream was back practicing with the team yesterday. A step in the right direction at least.
Video of Ream talking about recovery (nothing significant)