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Rob's Road To Recovery
Written by Newcastle Utd
Rob Elliot is hoping to pass his first injury milestone - walking without crutches - in the coming weeks
By Tom Easterby - Newcastle United Club Reporter
Goalkeeper Rob Elliot is hoping to pass his first milestone - walking without crutches - in the coming weeks as he embarks on the long "road to recovery".
Republic of Ireland international Elliot sustained an anterior cruciate ligament injury while playing in his country's 2-2 friendly draw with Slovakia in Dublin last month.
He underwent surgery on the injury to his right knee last week and, after returning to United's Benton training base, the 29-year-old outlined the earliest phase of his rehabilitation to nufc.co.uk.
"It went really well. Unfortunately I wasn't very well after, which is just one of the side effects of the drugs. It's taken me a good week to get over it but I feel a lot better now," said Elliot.
"The swelling's coming off, I'm in every day now just trying to get the knee bending, get the swelling away and just get back on the road to recovery.
"It's just movement of the knee, flexibility, icing and tensing the muscles, because they switch off and waste away very quickly.
"I'm obviously in good hands here, with good equipment and good physios keeping the muscles switched on as much as possible so that I can get back on my feet and off the crutches as quick as possible."
The former Charlton Athletic custodian is not the only goalkeeper in the Magpies' squad to have picked up an ACL injury this season, with Tim Krul having been ruled out for the campaign after suffering a similar problem in last October.
But Elliot says that encouragement provided by his surgeon, as well as current and former teammates who have recovered from the crushing injury, has reassured him that there will be light at the end of the tunnel.
"There's loads of players here that have done it, and obviously Tim's going through it at the same time, but speaking to the surgeon - who's done a lot of the football boys, who've all come back - he said when you decide to retire, it won't be because of your knee, it'll be because you're too tired or you don't want to play anymore," explained Elliot.
"That's the positive thing - that you do everything right, you rehab well and you get back strong, and then hopefully it won't be an issue in the future.
"I've spoken to Ryan Taylor and Mike Williamson, who've had similar injuries, and they said they've had no issues whatsoever. They're good and they're strong and they're cracking on."
Karl Darlow has replaced Elliot between the sticks for the last two games, at Norwich City and Southampton, and is set to make a St. James' Park Premier League debut against Swansea City on Saturday (3pm kick-off).
And while Elliot admitted that being forced to watch on from the sidelines is a tough experience, he insisted he'd do all he could to help his teammates through a difficult end to the campaign.
"That was horrible, I have to admit. Not just the results, but I didn't enjoy watching. I did miss it. It's all hit me a bit when I watch that actually, I can't do that for a long time.," he said.
"But you can't do anything about it, all you can do is support the lads, and being around the training ground, hopefully just try and help, encourage and get us in the right state of mind for each game."