Aston Villa playmaker Emiliano Buendia is continuing his recovery work from a serious knee injury and looks to be making good progress.
The 27-year-old suffered the devastating blow on the eve of the current Premier League season, and is expected to be sidelined for up to eight months.
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It’s been a bonus from a fan perspective to have had social media updates from the Argentine ace during his recovery process thus far, as he’s shown the hard work that’s going into it and the progress that he has gradually made to allow us to offer our support.
Further, we’ve regularly seen him celebrate with his teammates after games at Villa Park, and so the signs have all been positive to date that he’s coming along on schedule and hopefully working towards a return before the end of this season.
As seen in the video below taken from Emiliano Martinez’s Instagram story, Buendia is showing good movement at this stage as he uses what is seemingly a relatively new method of rehabilitation work through virtual reality.
While he’s obviously not back in the gym doing a full personal session and is still likely to be some way off returning to the grass and going through a group session with the rest of the squad, this is another important indication that he’s on track and is steadily working his way towards a comeback.
Naturally, the last phase will involve Emery wanting him to feature at U21s level to get his match fitness and sharpness back before reintegrating back into the senior side, and so it remains to be seen if there will be enough time in the current campaign for Buendia to feature and make his mark.
With that initial recovery schedule from Emery in mind, as per BBC Sport, where he put it at between six and eight months, that could see Buendia come back into contention around March, subject to him avoiding any setbacks along the way.
It would be some boost to see him back on the pitch if we’re still pushing in the Premier League and Europa Conference League in particular, and that kind of lift could be an inspirational moment late in our campaign to rally the players and get over the line to reach our objectives.
🤖 Emi Buendia utilizando gafas de realidad virtual como ayuda en su proceso de rehabilitación. #AVFC pic.twitter.com/J6RcLiwWRs
— Aston Villa Español (@AVFC_espanol) January 5, 2024