Xavi provides positive update on Barcelona midfielder Pedri’s injury: “It’s not as serious as we thought”

Barcelona enter the most crucial period of their season without one of their key players once again: midfielder Pedri suffered a hamstring injury and is expected to miss at least a month of action, with the young Spaniard seemingly unable to stay healthy at the worst possible time for him and the club as Frenkie de Jong also missing several weeks with an ankle sprain.

Pedri has had non-stop muscle injury issues for the better part of two years now, and there is serious concern about his ability to be a key piece of the Blaugrana’s future core if he can’t be available for more than a couple of months at a time.

But his coach is not too worried. Xavi Hernández spoke in a press conference on Thursday and provided a positive update on Pedri’s injury, and the boss sounds very confident that Pedri will not be an injury prone player for the rest of his career.

“What we try to do is prevent injuries, I believe we have done an impeccable job with that, especially with Pedri. I’ve already told him it’s his last injury. It’s not as serious as we thought. I am certain he will come back and be important.

“He is not the first player to have many injuries at the start of his career and never get injured again. It’s not easy to handle that pressure at a young age, I believe he has to convince himself that he will recover from this for good.”

Source: Mundo Deportivo

Xavi was a professional player at the highest level so I won’t argue with his thoughts on Pedri’s early struggles possibly becoming a thing of the past once he recovers from this issue, but it does sound strange to call Barça’s injury prevention process “impeccable” in a season plagued by injuries.

Every case is different and a few injuries (like Gavi, De Jong or Marc-André ter Stegen) are freak accidents and/or unexpected, but there have been too many muscle injuries to think it’s just a coincidence.

Hopefully Pedri does indeed get healthy for good, but what needs to change more than anything is the quality of the work done in preventing and treating injuries. Until Barça address such a glaring issue, no coach will ever be successful without a consistent run of games with a healthy squad.