Oliver Arblaster's gruelling Sheffield United rehabilitation as Blades star begins road to ACL recovery

Sheffield United’s medical staff have wasted no time working their magic on Oliver Arblaster after the Blades midfielder underwent surgery on his ruptured anterior cruciate ligament last month. The starlet suffered the devastating injury during the Steel City derby win over Wednesday before the international break and is expected to miss the remainder of the season.

The 20-year-old is facing a gruelling rehabilitation process as he looks to get back on the pitch as soon as possible but he won’t be rushed by United’s extensive and experienced medical team, who are working with Arblaster in the early stages of his recovery. United’s in-house media team have released part one of the Road to Recovery series earlier today.

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Arblaster is shown walking on crutches between the two buildings at United’s Shirecliffe training base and eating with his teammates before retiring to the treatment room while they make their way to the training pitches. A machine helps stimulate his quad muscles, to help minimise the risk of muscle loss while he is laid-up, while tentative first steps are taken in the Shirecliffe gym.

“Everything at the minute is just about regaining the daily knee function,” said physio Joe Sowden. “Getting that range back, within what the surgeon has said, he can’t go past 90 degrees at the moment because of the nature of the surgery. Trying to decrease any swelling around the ankle. As we get a bit more work in him that becomes easier. That means we can do a bit more work in the gym and then we can go onto the next phase, which is more or less gym based.”

In the video Arblaster shows obvious signs of discomfort as his damaged right knee is bent and reports feeling soreness in the night in the early stages of his rehabilitation process. He and Sowden joke about him being fit for the upcoming games against West Brom and Millwall while Gus Hamer and Rhian Brewster are amongst the teammates to visit him in the treatment room.

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There is a poignant moment in the video when Arblaster is seen watching his teammates on the training pitch and you can almost sense his desperation to be out there with them. But the midfielder appears to be in good spirits on the whole, with his maturity beyond his years helping on that front. But boss Chris Wilder has already warned Arblaster that there can be no shortcuts in his rehabilitation and that conversely, some good could come of the huge setback.

“It’s an opportunity now to focus on things that he hasn’t had the opportunity to focus on,” Wilder said. “There are always things that he can improve on, whether it’s physical or whatever. He can’t afford to waste time. There’ll be days when he’s down, watching his pals training and hopefully winning games of football.

“But it won’t last forever. It’s a supportive group, a real positive environment here but there are no shortcuts to get back to where he wants to be. There’ll be plenty of drive to make sure he keeps on track with everything.”