When Thiago Alcantara was down and out in early May with an ACL reinjury during rehab, the initial reports suggested he would be out for 11 weeks. On that timetable, his return was expected sometime during the month of August. During preseason, the expectations were revised to push his return somewhere closer to early to mid September. It is now early September and Matthias Sammer is saying they have no idea when Thiago will return.
"We cannot really say how long his recovery will take," Matthias Sammer said Thursday to kicker [translation via Goal.com]. "It's impossible to set a date for a comeback. This is a very regrettable development."
While Sammer can say regrettable development all he wants, it's not like this news crept up on them suddenly. They were also fully prepared for it with the addition of Xabi Alonso. While the addition of late addition of Mehdi Benatia made sense given the long term injury to Javi Martinez the addition of Alonso was always a little puzzling given the depth Bayern Munich has in holding midfield. With Thiago still on an unknown timetable, the additional injuries to Martinez and Schweinsteiger quickly put Bayern Munich into a position where they're relying on Philipp Lahm and a cast of impressive, yet young and inexperience, talent. In that context bringing in Alonso makes perfect sense.
The real question now is how long Bayern Munich have to wait? Martinez is out for at least the remainder of this calendar year, with significant question marks about whether he'll even return this season. Bastian Schweinsteiger is out for at least several more weeks with his knee issue and given this has been a chronic issue for him since February, there's significant question attached to that injury as well. Thiago makes it three for three and suddenly what once was just anticipating a few games with limited depth is now looking more and more ominous.
All of that juxtaposed to Thiago's innuendos that he's close to a return on Twitter as well the re-injury reports and subsequent refutation by Thiago in August, paint a picture of almost blinding confusion around his injury - which is the last thing Bayern Munich fans want to see two weeks into a new season.