Fulham are facing up to losing Clint Dempsey to a lengthy spell on the sidelines after the midfielder suffered suspected cruciate knee ligament damage in the 2-0 defeat to Blackburn today.
Dempsey sustained the injury just after the hour mark of the Ewood Park encounter, with Rovers already two goals up. Hodgson revealed after the game that the player will undergo scans on Monday but the early prognosis looks bad, with Dempsey’s season and World Cup involvement with the United States being brought into question. Roy Hodgson certainly didn’t sound optimistic in his post-match comments…
“The initial prognosis for Clint is not good. It looks he has suffered cruciate knee ligament damage which if he has keeps him out of action for a while. We won’t know for certain until the scan is completed on Monday but the doctors are pretty good these days and often their initial prognosis proves to be the correct one.”
The absence of Dempsey will rob Hodgson of a versatile player who has been a strong mid-price midfield option for fantasy managers this term. Dempsey is classified as a midfielder but has often been used by Fulham as a central striker. The recent collarbone injury to Bobby Zamora looked to have cemented this role for the American for several more weeks to come. Fantasy investment has therefore come his way – Dempsey is owned by almost 20% of FPL managers, who will now be in the market for a replacement.
It leaves Fulham very light up front. Hodgson also had to deal with an ankle injury to Paul Konchesky from today’s game but while he has cover for in the form of Toni Kallio at left-back. Hodgson’s only obvious immediate option in attack is now a pairing of Nevland and Johnson. A lightweight pairing if ever there was one. Diomansy Kamara is still nursing a knee injury following surgery, while Zamora is still weeks from a return.