Virg has got to be not only the best defender in the world, but also one of the most sensible players too. He's very level headed.
Never mind pressure from outside for him to play, I honestly don't think Virg will take any risks on his own rehabilitation if it means putting his future at risk. Not even if it means missing the Euros.
Virgil is the one putting pressure on for an early return, has done since day 1.
Liverpool will have np say. Of course Klopp wont wnat him going.
But if Van Dijk wants to go & is selected nothing we can do.
We also need to be careful because he has 2 years left on his contract .
We dont want to ruin the relationship with Van Dijk
It will come down to if Holland select him or not.
They should do the right thing as they have depth in the position.
None of this matters if the surgeon says no.
Conversely - Depay, Chiellini, Falcao and Ibrahimovic are some names who came back within 6-7 months and haven’t experienced recurrence.
The Euros start in June, 8 months after the injury. A study in the BMJ states 6.6 months is the average time taken for a player to return to training post ACL (10,000+ player sample). Rightly or wrongly, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in the Dutch squad.
Depay returned in pre-season, his first competitive match would have been around 8.5 months post-op
Chiellini has suffered an abundance of muscle related injuries since returning early from his ACL
Zlatan came back, played a couple of games and then spent the next few months out with an injury to the same knee as his ACL
Falcao is the only one out of those 4 that you mentioned who you could consider a success returning early but then you can also consider him lucky that he didn't pick up any other injuries
None of those compare to Virgil though because as far as I know none of them had their MCL repaired at the same time making it a much more complicated injury to recover from.
Virgil had his surgery on the 31s October, him returning for the Euro's means he'll have to be fit and playing football at the end of May, 7 months after, and maybe even before then! You've quoted return to training as well which isn't return to playing, there's no 'rightly' about it if he plays at the Euro's it's 100% wrong and he's massively risking reinjuring the ACL.