Dr Ramon Cugat has claimed that Barcelona’s injury-riddled forward Ansu Fati was overworked during his recovery from knee surgery.

The respected Catalan surgeon operated on Fati after he tore his meniscus in November 2020. The record-breaking teenage prodigy was sidelined for more than 300 days and has been plagued by various injury concerns ever since. Fati is currently recovering from a hamstring issue which may have derailed a potential move to Jose Mourinho’s Fenerbahce.

When reflecting on what has gone wrong for Fati over the subsequent four years, Cugat told Catalan radio station Cadena Ser: “The problem is not the operation, but the recovery. After three sessions we are no longer in charge, Barca said that they would recover him there and Barca is in charge.

“I was monitoring him and I saw two recovery sessions that I didn’t like. I spoke to Dr Lluis Til, from Barca, to tell him that I didn’t like it.”

Cugat continued: “The knee never got infected, what happened is that the stitches broke. I don’t know what happened because we no longer had him at the centre. Here he did 13 physiotherapy sessions and left perfectly, but in the 14th session his knee swelled up.

“We saw that he had forced himself, that he had worked twice as hard. That’s when the problem started.”

After almost a year on the sidelines, Barcelona boss at the time Xavi Hernandez shunted Fati quickly back into the first-team setup to help his struggling side. The prodigious forward scored on his return against Levante and was handed his first start just three weeks later. Fati’s body broke down within four weeks, forcing him into the treatment room with a hamstring issue for almost five months.

Amid all the doom and gloom, Cugat offered: “Ansu Fati can return to the same level as before he was injured. For the knee, 100%.” Although, he did warn: “I have not seen the hamstrings, I have never seen them.”

READ THE LATEST BARCELONA NEWS, TRANSFER RUMOURS & GOSSIP