Update: Manuel Neuer’s injury recovery making good progress

Manuel Neuer has not played a match of football since Germany’s 4-2 win over Costa Rica at the World Cup in Qatar after breaking his leg in a ski accident while on holiday before the resumption of Bayern Munich’s training. It caused the club a massive headache, having to go through what seemed like a decent back and forth to finally be able to land Yann Sommer from Borussia Monchengladbach as a direct replacement, as it was clear Sven Ulreich wasn’t going to be relied on to be the main man.

Sommer just recently recorded his first clean sheet for Bayern in the 4-0, DFB-Pokal win over Mainz, but at the first three times of asking, Bayern record 1-1 draws against RB Leipzig, FC Koln and Eintracht Frankfurt.

Per an update from Bild (via @iMiaSanMia), Neuer’s entourage have said that his injury recovery is progressing well, so much so that he is able to put slight weight on his affected leg to walk up and down flights of stairs even though he is on crutches. As he initially anticipated, he is still expecting to be back and ready for the beginning of Bayern’s preseason preparations this July as the get set for the 2023/24 campaign.

There was some speculation earlier as to Neuer’s entourage initially downplaying the extent of the keeper’s injury, but it has always been the expectation that he’d be back on time and fully fit for preseason. This is part of the reason why Neuer’s incoming replacement was going to be a tough sell, knowing that they’d more than likely have to eventually compete with Neuer once he returned from his injury. This is partially why Alexander Nubel didn’t want to get recalled from his loan spell at AS Monaco, though it’s since come out he also didn’t like how he felt ignored by former goalkeeping coach Toni Tapalovic.

Sommer was fully aware of the fact that Neuer would be back eventually and that he did face the prospect of competition with him. Still, he wanted to come to Bayern and had made it very clear to ‘Gladbach that’s what he wanted to do, it was just a matter of Die Fohlen being able to lineup a replacement of their own, which wound up being Jonas Omlin from Ligue 1 outfit Montpellier.