Ball bouncing to get back
by Joseph Caron Dawe, 26 March 2008
Michael Ball has allayed any underlying fears about his knee injury by saying there is ‘no major damage’ to the joint, and that he expects to be back in action sooner rather than later.
The full back picked up the injury in Manchester City’s 2-0 defeat to Reading and has since missed the win over Tottenham and draw with Bolton.
Ball is a doubt for City’s trip to Birmingham at the weekend, but despite that he is confident he will be fit again soon.
“There’s no major damage, it’s just a case of a badly bruised bone and I’ve just got to wait for that to heal as quickly as possible and I’ll be able to train pretty soon,” Ball told the club’s official website.
“I got the injury with about 25 minutes to go in the Reading game. I went up for a header, landed badly and just hyperextended my knee.”
He added: “It was just the timing of the injury that’s frustrating really.
“I remember speaking to the press before the Everton game and saying that avoiding injuries was important at this stage of the season – now we’ve had Micah (Richards), (Richard) Dunne, Nedum (Onuoha) and myself picking them up!
“There were a lot of us in the treatment room fighting to get back in time for the Tottenham game, Nedum and Dunnie made it, but because of the bruising I’ve got on the kneecap I’ve got to wait for that to settle down before I can join back in again.”