In a rather worrying sign for Hearts fans, new signing Jamie Walker had to pull-out of yesterday’s friendly defeat to Glenavon due to injury.
The Jambos are describing the injury as a ‘slight knock’. They could have been doing with the attacker in the friendly, losing 2-1 to the Northern Irish side, a disappointing result for Craig Levein, regardless of whether it’s a pre-season friendly or not.
The defeat won’t, and shouldn’t, bother the Jambos too much. What will worry them is Walker’s ‘slight knock’.
Walker’s got a recent history of knee problems
Levein recently spoke about a knee injury Walker had suffered in the EFL. Speaking to the Edinburgh Evening News, he seemed to confirm that he didn’t foresee any potential injury issues with Walker.
He said: ” He’s had a problem with his knee for a while and finally they got to the bottom of it. He had two chunks of bone removed which had grown underneath his patella tendon.
He has had them out and is feeling great. I have no doubt that hampered him before. I feel he will be fresh and ready to go.”
Clearly, Walker is not ‘fresh and ready to go’. His knee has been causing him problems for some time. According to Transfermarkt, its been a problem since the 2015/16 season.
He had a knee injury that season which required surgery, keeping him out for over three months. He had a slight knee issue in the 17/18 campaign that seen him miss a couple of weeks, before his most recent knee surgery in December 2018 finished his 18/19 campaign.
For someone that has had pretty regular knee-related injuries since 2015, even a ‘slight knock’ is worrying. If it is his knee that’s the issue, Hearts could be looking down the barrel of a more serious problem.
Hopefully, for everyone involved, this is not the case. With the competitive football calendar kicking off very soon, this is not the time for Hearts to be picking up any serious injuries.