Australia ladies’s soccer star Sam Kerr faces a chronic spell on the sidelines after struggling an anterior cruciate ligament harm throughout Chelsea’s warm-weather coaching camp in Morocco.
Kerr will now start rehabilitation with the London membership’s medical crew and her absence might be an enormous blow to the Blues as they bid for a fifth successive English Girls’s Tremendous League title.
Matildas captain Kerr has scored 4 targets in eight video games for WSL leaders Chelsea this season, whereas discovering the online 5 instances in 4 European Champions League appearances.
Kerr, who has scored 99 targets in 128 profession video games for Chelsea, will now be assessed by a specialist earlier than starting a prolonged interval of rehabilitation.
A membership assertion issued Sunday stated: “Everybody at Chelsea wish to want Sam the perfect for her restoration.”
Followers took it terribly. “What do you imply Sam Kerr injured her ACL, what do you imply?!?!” one wrote on X. “Like what do you truly imply?!?! It’s a darkish day for girls’s soccer.”
It’s a significantly crushing blow for Australian followers with Kerr now all-but sure to overlook the Matildas’ Olympics marketing campaign in Paris this 12 months.
The Aussie captain additionally missed many of the 2023 World Cup in Australia with a calf harm.
Kerr featured in Australia’s current Olympic qualifying matches on dwelling soil, however skipped the Matildas’ sequence towards Canada, the crew’s closing friendlies of the 12 months.
It has immediately hit dwelling for Chelsea that the star striker could by no means play for the membership once more.
Kerr’s contract with Chelsea expires on the finish of the 2023-24 season.
A Chelsea supporter’s profile on X with greater than 600,000 followers posted: “Gutted about Sam Kerr’s harm. Actually hope she indicators a brand new deal as it might be devastating if she didn’t play for the membership once more”.
Since becoming a member of in 2019, Kerr has helped Chelsea win 4 WSL titles, three FA Cups, two Girls’s League Cups, and the Girls’s Neighborhood Defend in 2020.
Kerr, the 2023 Ballon d’Or runner-up scored the one purpose in Chelsea’s 1-0 win over Manchester United in final season’s FA Cup closing.
She was a key determine up entrance for Chelsea in the course of the 2022/23 marketing campaign after fellow forwards Fran Kirby and Pernille Tougher suffered long-term accidents.
Kerr featured in 21 out of Chelsea’s 22 WSL fixtures final season, together with her final-day purpose double in a 3-0 win at Studying serving to safe one other title for the Blues.
Chelsea at present sit high of the desk, three factors above Manchester Metropolis.
– with AFP
