Reports: Giorgio Chiellini to miss a month due to latest thigh injury

When news of Giorgio Chiellini’s latest injury came out around 24 hours before Juventus’ lunchtime kickoff against Lazio last weekend, there probably wasn’t much surprise at all. It’s what we’ve come to expect from Chiellini these last few years, and the here-we-go-again kind of mood is something we’ve been through what feels like too many times to count.

But, the fact is, even though we’re sick of seeing Chiellini get injured, he’s injured once again. And the question that follows that simple fact is this: How long will Chiellini be out injured for?

According to reports from the likes of Sky Sport Italia, Romeo Agresti of Goal Italia and La Gazzetta dello Sport, this latest injury absence as a result of what Juve are currently describing as a “low-grade injury to the hamstring of the left thigh” will stretch into December — and quite possibly very close to the new year. As La Gazzetta says, it could be six games that Chiellini ends up missing. According to both Sky Italia and Agresti, Chiellini will be out for a month, and that might be the minimum of time he misses when it’s all said and done. After all, we’re talking about the same Chiellini who has suffered muscle injury after muscle injury, and this is just the latest in what has become a long list of injuries over the last few years.

Good thing that big Dutch fella is coming back, isn’t it?

With the way the schedule is going to be after the current international break, the possibility of Chiellini missing the vast majority of the games Juventus has before the Christmas holiday is very much a possibility. For the record, Juve have yet to really give any kind of indication just how much time Chiellini could miss due to this latest muscle injury. (But, knowing how they’ve been when it comes to announcing injury timetables lately, that might not be much of a surprise to many of us.)

And this is the part of the risk that comes with, at this point, expecting any kind of significant contributions from Chiellini for an extended period of time. Right now, with how his body has been the last few years — and this doesn’t include the significant amount of time he missed due to his major knee injury last season — thinking that he will be able to stay healthy for months at a time just isn’t exactly possible. Even if he is healthy, he has had to have his minutes significantly managed because the risk of injury is always going to be there more than probably anybody else on the field. His body just isn’t holding up as he heads into his late-30s.

So now we wait for Chiellini to come back from his latest injury absence. And hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, we get to wait a little bit before we see the next injury absence arrives.