𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

It has been a gruelling few years for Cheick Doucoure.

He was Crystal Palace’s player of the year in 2022-23, his first season at the club, knitting the midfield together in a holding role. Doucoure was one of the leading lights of Palace’s recruitment strategy, with its focus on signing young players, developing them and selling for a profit.

Everything had been going so well, following his move from Lens in July 2022, which could yet end up costing £26million ($35m). His performances led to interest from Liverpool.

But a ruptured Achilles tendon and then a torn knee meniscus have restricted the Mali international to just 14 first-team appearances, including five starts and not a single full 90 minutes, in almost three years.

Now, though, there is hope and optimism.

Doucoure worked hard to be available to start pre-season this summer in good condition and has emerged seemingly unscathed through its first four warm-up matches as Palace prepare for the new campaign.

He was absent only for the second of the back-to-back games in the Como Cup, in which new head coach Pierre Sage named two different starting XIs, Rio Cardines aside.

What happens next is uncertain, but the 26-year-old has put himself in an excellent position to push for a place in the team.

Palace’s midfield has become more technical and talented in recent years, with Adam Wharton and Daichi Kamada a settled pairing, but there is still room for Doucoure’s dynamism, ability to break up play, recycle the ball well and move it forward quickly.

It can only be positive that he is once again available, particularly with the demands of at least eight additional games in the league phase of the Europa League to come this season. Quality options in terms of depth are valuable.

There were extremely high hopes at Palace for Doucoure.

He was 22 when he signed and showed outstanding promise. But that all changed against Luton Town at Kenilworth Road in November 2023, three months into his second season in England. He played a cross-field pass, only to clutch at the back of his leg in agony. At the time, there was hope he might play again before that campaign ended, but it was soon dashed. He had ruptured an Achilles tendon.

An Achilles injury suffered at Luton in November 2023 kept Cheick Doucoure out long-term (Julian Finney/Getty Images)

Doucoure did not play again until the opening day of the next season, coming off the bench for the final six minutes of a 2-1 defeat at Brentford. Then there was a 70-minute run-out against Norwich City in the Carabao Cup and a very encouraging 40 minutes in a 1-1 league draw with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. It felt like he had never been away. But a further 45 minutes against Leicester City after the September international window were followed by a toe injury that kept him out for five games.

Then it was about a continued gradual reintroduction. That took until the January, when he started back-to-back in the reverse fixtures against Chelsea and Leicester.

But just as Doucoure’s Palace career looked to be back on track, he tore his meniscus that month, which led to him missing the rest of that season and the entirety of the last one.

Despite all of this, he was considered so influential that in early 2024 he was handed a new contract until the end of the 2028-29 season.

A couple of appearances for Palace’s under-21 side in March after a 14-month lay-off gave hope that he might be available for the first team’s run-in, but there were further minor setbacks that meant the reset would have to wait until this summer.

“There’s no reason he can’t get back to the level (of 2022-23), but he’s going to need time, a good period of training and a good block of matches,” Luke Anthony, clinical director at GoPerform and a former head of sports medicine at EFL club Reading and injury prevention specialist at Norwich, tells The Athletic.

“That won’t come in 10 or 20 games. It’s probably going to take at least half a season of being consistent. He’ll be more prone to picking up something else, even if it’s a minor thing.

“Both of those are surmountable injuries. The problem is when you have recurrent time loss, you lose a bit of robustness to your body.

“It’s about playing minutes somewhere. The first thing is building up a solid base of training and then minutes. If you’re not a starter, it’s hard because you’re coming on as a sub, then you lose structure to your week. You’re doing the same as starters, you have to prepare, but you’re constantly behind it because you’re not exposed to the same level of load.

“The actual injury can take a bit out of you and take a little bit off your performance. You miss training time as well. At his age, he will still be developing. It’s not just matches — training time is part of the development and injuries have robbed him of a lot of that development. So he hasn’t had the years of training, the technical and strength and conditioning and playing that he otherwise would have.

“It’s about consistency and time to develop robustness to become able to tolerate the forces on your body of playing high-level Premier League and European football. That will be the key part for him.”

His long-awaited return has, to date, gone well. But whether Doucoure will be able to play to the same standard seen in his debut campaign will only become clear over time.

Palace’s transfer business this summer will play a part in dictating how much of an opportunity he has to play regularly, even as a substitute or in domestic fixtures following a Europa League match. A loan would be considered if there is little prospect of meaningful game time for his parent club.

Just as with Doucoure’s previous return to action two years ago, it is crucial to be patient.

Palace’s sports science and fitness department will ensure that is the case, but supporters should not expect a rapid return to past performance levels.