So today, at full time, Ange gave us all a modest update on Callum.
Nothing about it is definitive. Nothing about it is written in stone. But it is a far more hopeful scenario than most of us dared to dream; an absence window in weeks and not months.
Still, it’ll be a number of weeks that puts a return before the World Cup out of reach. He’ll miss some massive games as a result of this injury, and a big chunk of the most important bit of the season. For all that, this is not the news we dreaded, something that keeps him on the side-lines until most of the big issues are decided or on the brink.
A knee injury can be a disaster for a player and his team. They can keep a player out for several months, and when you’re in the trenches as we’ll be before this season ends it is soul-sapping to have such an influential player out of the action.
But that doesn’t look as it if it’s going to be the case here.
A four week timeline?
That’s like a left-handed gift from the Gods considering what it could have been, and what many of us were afraid that it would be. There will be almost a dozen games crammed into that spell, and we’ll miss him in every single one of them, but it could have been worse.
When Ange spoke in midweek he made it sound like this might be a truly calamitous injury, the sort that rules someone out for the rest of the season. They happen all the time, and they often don’t look like much when they do.
We all had the thought in our heads, and the manager’s words did nothing to soothe our fears.
But he has today, and so tonight I’m breathing a sigh of relief.
Yes, I wanted Callum in the stands for a while. But I had a couple of matches in mind, with the boss leaving him out to rest him so that he was ready to fire on all cylinders as the campaign wore on.
Get well soon Callum. Get back into this team as quick as good guidance and care allows.
I don’t think we will see Calmac in the Hoops again till after the World Cup.