Martin Boyle admits he is optimistic about a swift return from injury after he revealed an ACL issue may have troubled him for a long time.
The Australian star was devastated to learn his World Cup dream was over after racing to get back to fitness for the Qatar tournament following a knock while playing for Hibs against Ross County. The winger went down in October and found out the extent of the injury in recent weeks, with the rest of the reason likely to be ruled out.
It came as a huge blow to Lee Johnson's side as the Aussie attacker had marked his return to Edinburgh with key goals and assists before the knock. But Boyle is taking the side of optimism in Leith as he revealed the concern over his meniscus might have affected him for over seven years in the past.
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The 29-year-old reckons that leaves room for a swift as possible to return to action, but admits it has been hard to process. He said: "Basically what I have is a discoid meniscus, where I’ve got a larger meniscus than normal. So that was keeping everything in place, it was keeping my cruciate stable, and long story short, I could have had this ACL injury for about six, seven years and been playing through it.
"It’s a bit of a tricky one. I’ve been trying to digest it myself – you get put to sleep and you wake up and your whole knee’s been reconstructed.
"I think that’s why I’m kind of optimistic. I’ve played that long with an injury that’s severe, and when I did damage the meniscus it’s kind of just not been stable enough for my ACL to hold and that’s why I’ve had that surgery."
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