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Chelsea star Wesley Fofana is starting to step up his rehabilitation from a serious knee injury, with hopes of making a return sometime this season. The France international has had a stop-start career so far for the Blues, following on from his £75million switch from Leicester in 2022.
The 22-year-old made 20 appearances for the west London club in his debut campaign, including some time in the Champions League. However, there were multiple times where he was unavailable due to injuries, with the first keeping him out from October to December before another issue kept him out until February.
Both problems were with his knees, but there was hope that those problems would be behind him after sustaining a run of starts until the end of the season. While Fofana was struggling off the pitch, the Blues were struggling on it as they slumped to a mid-table finish under the new ownership.
There would be further spending in the summer as new faces were added, including Axel Disasi and the returning Levi Colwill that would challenge the Frenchman in defence. With a new manager in the form of Mauricio Pochettino, there was also the hope of brighter days ahead.
For Fofana, things got much worse though as he ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament in pre-season that prevented him from joining up with the rest of the squad. Surgery was required as his long journey back to full fitness was ahead of him, with four months passing since then.
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In positive news, Chelsea revealed on Thursday that Fofana was back training on grass as he steps up his rehabilitation process. It's a huge step towards his full recovery, counting down the milestones before he can finally step back out onto a football pitch once again.
The one downside to this is that returning to training on the grass isn't the same as rejoining the first-team squad in full training. To start with, it'll be non-contact and mainly surrounds getting a feel for running on grass once again, with the intensity stepping up as the knee regains strength.
There will be every hope that Fofana can make a return to action in time to star for Pochettino this season, but there's still a long way to go before then.
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