Brighton & Hove Albion striker Evan Ferguson is facing possible surgery on a left ankle injury sustained during his loan spell with Roma.
Ferguson has returned to the Italian Serie A side for confirmation of the scale of the damage after spending time back at Brighton for an initial assessment of the injury. He last appeared for the club in the Europa League against Stuttgart on January 22.
“I had a chance to catch up with him,” head coach Fabian Hurzeler during his media briefing on Thursday for Sunday’s home game against Nottingham Forest. At the moment he is back with Roma. He had a first opinion regarding his injury.
“Now he gets a second opinion. We all have to make the right decisions, what is best for Evan to continue, how to proceed with this issue.” Asked if that could mean surgery, Hurzeler added: “It might be a possibility. We have to wait for the second opinion.”
Ferguson has scored five goals and two assists in 22 appearances and 1,078 minutes on the pitch at Roma since joining Gian Piero Gasperini’s side on loan for the season. Hurzeler believes the loan has worked well for the 21-year-old after goals and confidence dried up with Brighton and on loan to West Ham United at the end of last season.
“I spoke to him and he said an interesting sentence,” Hurzeler told The Athletic. “He said he learned a lot. That is most important for players on loan, to learn something from a new environment, new culture, new style of play. That they learn how to fight, how to adapt to different circumstances.
“That is important. The second thing is before his injury he played a lot of minutes, so he had a really good phase at Roma, he scored some nice goals, he was part of the team. That is the second purpose of a loan. When I spoke to him I had a really good feeling. So, now hopefully the injury is not that bad, he can have some more game minutes and then let’s see what happens in the summer. But after the conversation I had with him I feel quite confident and positive that we might see a different Evan Ferguson.”
Republic of Ireland are hoping that Ferguson’s injury does not rule him out of the World Cup qualifying play-offs. They are away to the Czech Republic on March 26 and, if they come through that tie, will face Denmark or North Macedonia in a qualification decider in Dublin on March 31.
Brighton’s Swedish international midfielder Yasin Ayari is back in full training after missing the last four matches with a dislocated shoulder as 14th-placed Brighton bid to build on Saturday’s 2-0 win at Brentford, only their second league win in 14 games.