Drury on comeback trail

City defender Adam Drury is about to hit one of the most important goals of his career - the first major step in his recovery from a serious knee injury.

The 29-year-old full-back has been sidelined by knee ligament damage since the 3-1 home defeat by Bristol City on October 20. The injury required surgery, and he is expected to miss the rest of the season.

But after having to sit and watch while his team-mates have dug the Canaries out of the bottom three of the Championship under new manager Glenn Roeder, there is some light at the end of the tunnel for the former skipper, still moving around slowly on crutches.

It will be six weeks tomorrow since Drury's operation, and physiotherapist Neal Reynolds told the club's official website he was hopeful the player would soon be walking under his own steam again.

“He's coming along on course, really,” said Reynolds. “We've set goals and set times that we're going to work on. His first goal is six weeks, which comes up this Thursday, from the time of the operation.

“So from that point of view he's reached every goal that he's needed to. He will then come out of the brace that he's in at the moment, off the crutches, and then he will start to walk around without crutches.

“The first six weeks are the hardest. He's definitely on course. He's reached every goal so far.”

Drury said he was indebted to Reynolds for not accepting the initial diagnosis of a simple calf strain.

Recalling the moment he was injured, he said: “I tried to get up and play on with it and went up for a header and realised something serious was wrong.

“I had a scan on it afterwards and it showed a bit of a calf strain on it. But, luckily, Neal didn't agree with that and took me to see a specialist, and if it hadn't been for that we probably would have been treating it as a calf strain for a while and done more serious damage, so a big thank you to Neal for checking it out.”

Reynolds said instinct told him Drury's injury was much worse than it first appeared.

“When I looked on the pitch I said to Adam 'I think you need to come off, I don't think you're going to be able to continue',” said Reynolds. “It was a bit of a mystery injury. We got it scanned a couple of days later and it came back that he had a calf strain. And sometimes in acute situations these things can happen.

“I must admit we looked at it and it completely surprised me and I said to him 'I can't believe that's all you've got', looking at how his knee looked. Everyone goes on about MRI scans, but you can't just go on what a scan tells you - you have to go on what the knee looks like.

“We treated it very gently and hadn't done much with it and about a week later I still wasn't happy with it so we went to speak to a surgeon and from there the rest is history. He agreed with me, we disagreed with the MRI scan and he had surgery that day.”

Drury is at Colney for rehabilitation work almost every day, where Reynolds is supported by Peter Shaw and Jo Saunders in the physio department.

“It's coming along well,” Drury added. “Obviously I know it's going to be a long-term thing and when you first hear it it's very disappointing. But the physio team here have worked brilliantly with me and kept me ticking along. They haven't let me get my head down. It's part of the game and you have to get on with it.

“You have your good days and you have your bad days but every day is getting closer to playing again.”

Drury told CanariesWorld he had no comeback target in mind.

“You don't want to set dates or anything like that,” he said. “Just every day that goes by is a day closer to being back training and playing. Looking out there at the minute, training looks fun and the lads look like they're enjoying themselves so you just want to be part of that. So I just want to be back as quickly as I can.

“Any injury is disappointing, but when you know it's not just a couple of weeks or a month it's hard to take. But the lads have done brilliantly so far and I hope they keep it going. They've got us out of trouble and hopefully they can keep climbing the table.”