Liverpool striker Jayden Danns continues to endure a frustrating second half of the season. The latest injury update is not a positive one.
You'd be forgiven for not realizing, but Danns actually completed a loan switch to Sunderland in the winter transfer window.
Letting him leave looked like a relatively risky move by Arne Slot at the time, given the continuing woes of Diogo Jota and Darwin Nunez, although the opportunity for him to gain experience at the business end of the Championship looked like a good one.
But the way things have turned out, Danns has not been able to make an impact anywhere. After the clubs detected an injury during the transfer process, it was decided that the youngster would complete his recuperation at Liverpool —
with only a handful of games left in the Championship season, he's still not even training with Sunderland.
It's a mark of how highly Sunderland rates Danns that it went ahead with the deal despite the uncertain injury prognosis.
But presumably it was expected, or at least hoped, that the Anfield talent would have been fit to play a role by now.
However, manager Regis Le Bris has warned that time is running out for Danns to play any kind of role. While he denied that Sunderland is at a point where it needs to "admit defeat," he conceded that the Liverpool man is in a race against time to make any kind of impact.
"We are not at this point right now but the season is running so it will be difficult," Le Bris said, via the Northern Echo. "We don't know exactly."
The injury in question is a persistent back issue, which also disrupted Danns in pre-season. Still only 19, he will be hopeful of shaking it off completely in the long run, but it has colored his entire campaign after such an exciting breakthough under Jurgen Klopp.
There is still theoretically time for Danns to recover and make a dramatic impact for Sunderland.
There are eight games left of the regular Championship season, but the playoffs look like a near-certainty for the Black Cats.
Danns' loan side is 11 points adrift of the automatic promotion places, but 12 points above seventh.
The playoff final will take place on May 24, still almost two months away.
But even assuming Danns can get fit by then, it would be a very brave call to throw in a striker who has hardly even trained with the Sunderland team.
Wilson Isidor has been reasonably potent at the tip of the attack this season, netting 12 times in 35 appearances, and the north-east outfit has actually scored more goals than Sheffield United and Burnley (currently second and third).
While the Liverpool striker can just about still dream of a fairytale ending to the season, it looks more likely that he will be forced to write the campaign off as something of a nightmare.
At the very least, here's hoping he can get fit in time for pre-season, where he will try to convince Slot not to send him anywhere.
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