Revealed: Kozak injury woefully mishandled, but he may be back in February

Libor Kozak was told by his operating doctor to begin practicing well before it was advisable, the Czech striker has revealed in an interview. The article, in Czech, was found by Sam Tighe, who asked a Czech-speaking acquaintance on twitter for help with translating. Sam gave us permission to run this with the information he found out. You can read that full twitter conversation here.

Apparently after the striker broke both his calf and shin bones in a collision with Ciaran Clark, Kozak went to a an external English doctor. His tibia (shin) had a titanium rod inserted, and while that seemed to heal well, his fibula (calf) did not. Nevertheless, the doctor told him that he was fine to practice:

@stighefootball "You don't need a calf bone to play," he said to him. Shocking.

— Tomas Danicek (@TomDanicek) January 3, 2015

Right? Who needs a calf bone.

Anyhow, Kozak of course ended up re-injuring himself and needed a second surgery. This time he went to an Italian doctor he had known in his time at Lazio who also works with the Italian national team. The second surgery was a success, and we finally get some good news from all of this. Kozak is now looking at a late-January fitness test at which point he hopes to be told he can resume full training. If that actually happens, we may see the striker make his return in February, a full year after he injured himself.

It's unclear why Kozak went to a non-club doctor in the first place, but it seems as if that decision has set him back multiple months. Had the injury been treated appropriately from the beginning, it doesn't seem like a stretch to say that Kozak could have been back already providing the support in the attack that Aston Villa sorely need. It will be interesting to see if the club have anything to say about this interview, and we'll certainly let you know if they do.