Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson has weighed in on Christian Benteke’s latest injury set-back, with the Belgian forward likely to be out until the New Year.
The 27-year old hasn’t played for the Eagles since September 1, with the former Liverpool forward having withdrawn from the Belgium squad during the last international break.
It was reported earlier that following knee surgery, Benteke was to be out until at least the New Year, with Hodgson telling Sky Sports, as quoted by Football.London:
Christian Benteke was operated on yesterday.
We tried the conservative route to put an end to his knee problem, which he has suffered with for a while.
That didn’t work out. There was always the risk that if it didn’t work out an operation would be necessary and I got the bad news that the operation was necessary, had taken place and now he will be out for a long period of time.
It’s an operation and normally operations take time. It is dangerous for people like myself to start saying ‘it will be this amount of time’ because you fall foul of the doctors and the sport scientists who have a different view.
But there’s no doubt we won’t be seeing much of him this year.
I think it will take until 2019 before we see him, but hopefully earlier than later in 2019.
Benteke is goalless in four appearances for Palace so far this season, and despite having not yet scored, his absence leaves the Eagles without a dominant force up front.
