Arkadiusz Milik out four months after knee surgery

Arkadiusz Milik has only just recently been starting to look more like the player that Napoli fans fell in love with a year ago before tearing his ACL in his left knee on international duty. Now, though, we have to wait to see him once more, after he hurt his right knee against SPAL on Saturday and went under the knife to repair the damage on Monday morning.

While the specifics of the damage done haven’t been mentioned yet, according to reports in Italy, Milik will be out “at least” four months, suggesting that he tore his other ACL. It took Milik just over four months to get back on the pitch last season -- though as we saw, it took much longer than that for him to start getting more steady playing time again and start to find his form.

It’s a real shame for Milik, who has the potential to be a truly fantastic striker, but this past year has been absolutely brutal for the 23 year old. He was in the middle of a massive breakout year, then a serious knee injury cut that short and set him back a year. Now another has set him back probably another year. Hopefully this string of bad luck turns around soon for him, because his talent deserves success.

Napoli, meanwhile, will need to find some solutions up top. Dries Mertens is still in fantastic form, but with Milik injured, he has no backup. Don’t be surprised if we see see Jose Callejon slide inside from time to time when Mertens needs a break, hopefully meaning we start to see a lot more of exciting youngster Adam Ounas in the near future.

Get well soon, Arek. Napoli will miss you.