Crystal Palace defender Nathan Ferguson is facing another spell on the sidelines after suffering a serious hamstring injury.
Ferguson, who has dogged by injuries since joining Palace in 2020, had been recovering from a hamstring problem before playing in an under-21s game on Tuesday.
But despite completing the full 90 minutes for the first time in a competitive game at any level since January 2022 — and only the second time since January 2020 — he sustained further damage in a Premier League International Cup game against Monaco and is set for another significant lay-off.
The 23-year-old has played just eight minutes of Premier League football since arriving from West Brom.
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Palace manager Roy Hodgson had confirmed Ferguson’s latest setback on Thursday but at that point did not provide any prognosis.
“I was really pleased to see him (Nathan Ferguson) play,” Hodgson said ahead of Friday’s visit of Tottenham. “He played well but I heard today he picked up an injury during the course of the game but I don’t know how serious it is.”
Ferguson has had to contend with several years of injury misery after picking up a serious knee problem in January 2020 while still with West Brom. He signed for Palace that summer under freedom of contract, with a tribunal ruling that compensation of £900,000 was due in November 2021.
Ferguson ruptured his Achilles in May 2021 shortly after returning from his knee injury.
He finally made his first-team debut for Palace as a late substitute in that year’s Boxing Day defeat by Tottenham Hotspur, but those eight minutes remain his only time on the pitch in a Palace shirt outside of under-21 matches.
A hamstring problem sustained in February 2022 ruled him out for a further eight weeks, before a foot injury kept him sidelined for six more weeks at the start of the 2022-23 season.
In April, he sustained a muscle tear that ruled him out for the remainder of the season.
Speaking at that time, Hodgson said: “I was here when the club brought him to the club. We were very excited about him coming to the club — we thought we had a little diamond on our hands.
“What has happened to him over these three years has been a real tragedy.”
(Photo: Christopher Lee/Getty Images)
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