Florin Gardos has told Southampton FC that full recovery from his knee injury is close, with the Romanian international set to return to full training within the next couple of weeks.
Gardos was in good spirits as the 2014/15 season ended; Saints had qualified for the Europa League preliminary rounds and the 6ft 4 centre-half was looking to make a proper push for a regular first-team place. Then, disaster struck and the Romanian was sidelined for up to seven months with a knee injury.
Now, however, Gardos is well on the road to recovery and not a million miles away from first-team action.
I was really confident after my first season because the team played great and we finished in a really good position to get into the Europa League.
Then the main competitor for my place in the team Toby [Alderweireld] left so I was confident, but this shows you can never know what happens in life because sometimes you have accidents like this.
On his return to action:
It should probably be the beginning of February that I join with the team in training and then perhaps another couple of weeks before I get used to playing again and being on the pitch with my teammates.
It’s quite different actually to now being on your own where I’m working with Bill [Styles, First Team Sports Scientist], so it will take a bit of time to get used to playing again, but I hope it’s going to go as it has done to now because I haven’t really had any problems with the knee, so everything has gone almost perfectly and hopefully it’s going to be OK.
Gardos’ return will be a major boost for Southampton, after Steven Caulker’s loan deal was terminated earlier this week.
Will he be able to challenge Virgil Van Dijk or Jose Fonte for their places?
