Rodrigo Gomes successfully underwent surgery earlier this week and has now begun his recovery process ahead of a return to action in early 2026.
The Portuguese injured his groin in last week’s Carabao Cup tie with Chelsea and underwent a minor procedure on Monday, starting the healing process on an injury which is expected to keep him out for eight to 12 weeks.
The youngster joins Matt Doherty in the treatment room, with the Irishman out for a shorter period with a knee injury, and Phil Hayward, the club’s director of performance, explained how Gomes’ injury occurred in the first half of the Chelsea tie.
“Rodrigo felt a sharp pain in a particular action, and that is the muscle and tendon area separating slightly; tendons tend to take longer to heal than muscles,” Hayward said. “The body doesn't do a great job of repairing tendons, in part because of the nature of the tissue and because the blood supply is not great, and that's the reason we decided to get the surgery done. We didn't want to delay and then down the line realise he needed surgery.
“It’s an injury that 10, 12 years ago people probably didn't recognise. The imaging has advanced a lot in this area, as has the specialist knowledge around these issues. A few years ago these types of issue were treated conservatively which brought a higher re-injury rate. Now we recognise these issues more and realise that often they need surgical intervention to make sure that things are properly repaired and don’t cause a problem further down the line.”
First-team physiotherapist Matt Butterfield joined Gomes for his operation on Monday, which took place in London, courtesy of hip and groin specialist surgeon Ernest Schilders. The minor procedure took 90 minutes and, after spending Tuesday at home, the winger was back at Compton Park on Wednesday starting his rehabilitation.
“Surgery went really well. It’s never easy to give accurate timescales at such an early point, but we have a timeframe we're working towards based on the norm for this kind of surgery. We've had a couple of similar surgeries in the last two or three years, and it’s normally around the eight-to-12-week mark, hopefully towards the earlier part of that, all being well.
“Obviously, we’re always being cautious not to push too quickly and risk irritating anything. We’ll be mindful of how he is functioning, trying not to look at the calendar, always assessing how he's progressing functionally, how the tissue is responding to the load the physios and performance team are putting through it, making sure that he's not having any acute reaction or flare up.
“We have functional benchmarks that we look to tick off, from a strength perspective, a range of movement perspective, from a motor pattern perspective, in terms of how an athlete moves. We'll tick those things off one by one and then progress to the next, rather than looking at particular time frames.”
For Gomes, being at Compton Park rehabilitating is important mentally, alongside his teammates. A constant positive presence, the youngster is likely to be pushing the club’s medical department in a bid to get fit as soon as possible, and Hayward is certain that there’ll be no lasting issues from this injury.
“There’s obviously a lot going on at the club, so to add an injury to that probably causes an additional layer of stress for him. But he's a very positive guy, a great guy to be around. As soon as we decided on surgery, he was getting his head around it, asking about timeframes and wanting to start working. I'm sure it'll be a case of us having to control him and hold him back at times, because he's so enthusiastic and keen to get going.
“He’ll be absolutely fine. It's a procedure that we see more and more in football, a lot of players going for this kind of surgery after these types of injuries to make sure that they do have a really good recovery and have no issues down the line. He'll make a full recovery, and I'm sure he'll be back to his old self sooner rather than later.”
In the short-term, Gomes is joined in the treatment room by Doherty, who injured his knee in the same Chelsea tie. The Irishman was absent at Fulham on Saturday and is expected to miss this weekend’s trip to Stamford Bridge, but the issue won’t keep him out long-term.
“Matt suffered very low-grade medial collateral ligament injury – the ligament on the inside of the knee that connects the femur to the tibia, and in basic terms stops the lower leg going out to the side, he stretched that a little. It’s fairly minor, but it will definitely keep him out for a couple of weeks, unfortunately.”
Doherty himself underwent minor wrist surgery last month, and made a quicker than expected return, and while this unrelated injury is untimely during a period of managerial change at the club, it will allow the 33-year-old further time to fully mend his wrist.
“There's some active treatment and lots of work that can be done to maintain fitness. It allows us to really get to grips with some of his wrist rehab, trying everything we can to make sure that when he does get back into training again, he's ready to hit the ground running and he's fully fit. He’s working hard in the gym, in the pool, on Alter-G treadmill to keep his fitness up.
“The International break will take up a couple of weeks of the period that he's out for as well, which from our perspective as a club obviously works out quite well scheduling wise. Often with these injuries they can get running pretty quickly, but it tends to be striking the ball and tackling actions which we need to take more time with and can end up causing more issues, we’ll be progressing towards this, but the first target is getting him running pretty quickly. He’ll be absolutely fine.”
