THE walking wounded at London Colney are on their way to recovery and reaping the benefits of a hard working summer with the Hornets' medical team.
Head of medical Andy Rolls and his staff staggered their summer holidays to provide help and support to those players who had their season cut short by injury.
Junior Osborne will be one who is itching to get back and play some football as quick as possible after his horrendous injury problems.
The defender missed the whole of last season with a cruciate ligament injury and has had two operations to correct the problem.
Rolls said: "Junior Osborne has been in over the summer and worked exceptionally hard, he's been to Lilleshall (sports injury rehab centre) for a couple of weeks as part of his recovery as well.
"Junior has been magnificient really, considering he's been out for almost a year now.
"He started hard running and resumed full training on Tuesday and I don't foresee any future problems with him - he's worked hard and he'll continue to do that. Junior also did very well in his testing on Monday."
Damien Francis and Gareth Williams both suffered cruciate ligament injuries at the tail end of last season and have been in the capable hands of Rolls and co ever since.
Francis played his last game for Watford in the 1-1 draw with Manchester City in April at Vicarage Road.
Rolls said: "Damien has been in over the summer. He is on target at the moment, six months is the average time out and he's doing well."
Fellow midfielder Gareth Williams picked up his injury at a similar time to Francis. Rolls revealed that Williams has had his summer break and is back in and progressing very well.
The final long-term player is Moses Ashikodi who fractured his tibula while on loan last season. "Moses has been away over the summer at a rehab centre and has worked hard. He started running on Tuesday, at week 10, which is excellent and he's a couple of months away from joining the team."
"Gareth, Damien and Moses all had their operations within a two-week period. Hopefully by September or October they'll all be back in and it'll be like having three new players so it will be very exciting."
Whilst the rest of the squad broke up shortly after the last game of the season against Newcastle those with injuries have been frequent visitors to the Hornets' training ground along with the medical team.
Rolls and his team split up their summer with each of them working two weeks - meaning they all had a month off.
The players themselves have their schedule dictated by their own injury. Rolls explained: "The players that were injured understand that they get two weeks off but it's when their injury says they can have that time off - everyone needs a rest but it has been at different stages throughout the summer for them."
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