West Brom veteran eyes career saving treatments

Dec 16 2009 by Chris Lepkowski

West Brom  star Neil Clement has undergone 'revolutionary treatments' in a bid to try and save his career.

Albion's current longest serving player has not figured since limping off with a knee injury during the opening minutes of the pre-season friendly against Real Mallorca some 17 months ago.

The injury required surgery and needed time to heal, a process which took several months.

Clement has done light running but, ultimately, his recovery will be determined by how successfully he can twist, turn and commit to tackles.

Dan Ashworth, Albion's sporting and technical director, admitted that Clement's progress was now reaching a critical stage.

"Neil's had some revolutionary treatments and seen consultants," Ashworth told the Birmingham Mail.

"We are trying out every last avenue. He's seen three specialists with two different forms treatments.

"We hope to get an answer on the last one in next week or so as to whether it will work and enable him to push on.

"We are conscious it's been two years now so we want to try everything.

"Neil's been on and off during those two years. He's had nearly 18 months without competitive football so it's fairly serious."

Meanwhile, Ashworth revealed that both James Morrison and Ishmael Miller remained on track for New Year returns.

"People talk about what we'll do in January but we have two proven players on the way back," he added.

"Ishmael is back in training. He's supposed to be doing non-contact training but finding it difficult to not have contact.

"We've pencilled in late January really or early February.

"Same with James. He's back running. His heel is fully healed over. You can just see a small scar but he's doing training inside, we're not letting him outside yet just to be sure.

"He's doing some running in trainers and had the back of one of his trainers cut out just to ease that a bit."