Sydney FC star Milos Ninkovic has allayed concerns of any long-term injury, as he returned to the training pitch on Monday at Macquarie University Sports Fields.
The Serbian star said he feared he was in for a long stint on the sidelines following a collision in last Wednesday’s FFA Cup encounter against the Roar, however he’s pleased to report otherwise following time spent with the Sky Blues’ medical staff.
“I don’t know the exact injury but I was worried about it,” Ninkovic said.
“At the moment when I felt the pain in the game I thought probably something was broken because I couldn’t move my foot and that was scary to me.
“The day after, normally it’s worse, but I felt better and I felt probably everything is ok and nothing is broken which is the most important thing. Now it’s just a big bruise and I think in two or three days I will be alright.
“I couldn’t feel my foot. I couldn’t move it was like a dead foot and if you have this type of feeling it’s normally something bad. Thank God everything is fine.
“I feel much better today than yesterday or two days ago. Today I started to work with the ball and to be honest I feel much better.
“To recover, massage before training on that spot and after training the GameReady and ice,” he continued.
“You can’t do too much, just ice and massage that’s it. I’ve only missed a couple of sessions and I’ll start working with the team after the Wollongong game but it’s always good to be on the pitch – better than staying with Elias [Boukarim – Head of High Performance] off the pitch.”
Reflecting on the Sky Blues’ pre-season so far, Ninkovic believes the team can use last Wednesday’s FFA Cup result as a building block for the season ahead, with two months to go until the Hyundai A-League 2019/20 season kicks off.
“It’s too early to make comparisons between this season and last season but we’ve signed some very good players,” he said.
“We have good players no doubt about that, we just have to give 100% to win the games. Everyone will give more than 100% to beat us, Brisbane did that, they played like a Grand Final.
“When the season starts we need to be 100% ready and I think we can do very good things this season.
“We have two months to work hard, we are out from the cup which for me and everyone is a big shock. But it is maybe a good wake up call and we know exactly what we can expect now.
“We are the Champions and everyone wants to beat us.”
Sydney FC return to pre-season action away at WIN Stadium, Wollongong against the Wollongong Wolves (kick off 7pm AEST). Stay tuned to the club’s social media to keep up to date with the clash.
