Nottingham Forest defender Giulian Biancone says he is making positive progress in his recovery from his anterior cruciate ligament injury.
An innocuous incident in training prior to the Reds’ match against Brentford in November saw the summer signing’s season ended early. It came after he had made just three appearances for the club since his move from Troyes.
Biancone’s Forest teammates showed their support by wearing t-shirts bearing his name, shirt number (2) and the phrase ‘#together’ during their warm-up before facing the Bees. And he has received lots of supportive messages since, while he recently spoke with head coach Steve Cooper via FaceTime.
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The 22-year-old underwent surgery in Austria and started his rehabilitation in Italy. He is now in the next phase of recovery and says he is fully focused on getting fit again.
“I can now manage on my own, I am completely independent,” the Frenchman told former club AS Monaco in a translated interview on their official website. “After the operation, I was on crutches, with a splint, and then I had pain in the knee when I walked too long.
“Today it's over, I no longer have pain. I can drive, run, walk long distances and stand without feeling pain.
“I am now entering the second phase of the injury, having passed the strength test, which was positive. I'm starting to walk again, I do hurdle exercises, range work with crampons. It really does me good to find all that again, to touch the ball a bit.
“It's not always easy because it's long, and sometimes I want to put a big shot in the top corner but I can't! But I am very well taken care of in a specialised clinic.
“At the very beginning I didn't really know where it was going to lead me because I had never been injured, at least seriously, before. When I knew I was going to have surgery, it was a first test. And then when I started rehabilitation and I saw the exercises and the evolution that I had to have to come back, I said to myself, ‘ah yeah, it's going to be a bit long’.
“But then I put myself in work mode and in the state of mind to progress, not in my football, but in the management of my injury. It's been better lately because I manage to find new goals and achieve them quite quickly. I managed to straighten my head and move on.
“When the club announced my injury via the coach and I spoke about it myself on my social networks, I received a lot of messages. Whether it's from family, friends, former teammates or even supporters, I've had so many expressions of love and support.
“There was also the gesture of my club, when the players wore a ‘Biancone, No.2’ t-shirt during warm-up before the match against Brentford. It really touched me. And I now regularly have messages from people who ask me how it's progressing, so it's nice.”
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