SWINDON TOWN: Paolo praises surgeon Mariani as Troy could return this season (From Swindon Advertiser)

SWINDON TOWN: Paolo praises surgeon Mariani as Troy could return this season

6:00am Saturday 12th January 2013 in Sport By Sam Morshead

PAOLO Di Canio paid tribute to the brilliance of Professor Pier Paolo Mariani after the Italian surgeon completed a successful knee operation on Troy Archibald-Henville this week.

The defender was treated by the knee and shoulder specialist at the Villa Stuart sports rehabilitation facility on the outskirts of Rome, where Swindon Town players are seen to for free after Di Canio handed over his image rights to the clinic for promotional purposes.

Mariani discovered that Archibald-Henville had a piece of cartilage floating in his knee, which he subsequently fixed, meaning the former Exeter man will miss just eight weeks of the campaign.

Considering the worst-case scenario would have seen Archibald-Henville sidelined for six months, things haven’t turned out too badly for the 24-year-old, and his manager was grateful to Mariani for his role in the centre-back’s treatment.

“Until the end I hoped it was one month. Two months, if everything is okay, means we can have him for the last seven or eight games. At the end of the day I am happy to know Mariani did a fantastic job,” he said.

“He discovered something that you can’t discover even with a scan, if there is a gap between the bone and the cartilage.

“I don’t want to accuse anyone, because Mariani is a fantastic surgeon, but he said it wasn’t easy to discover in the previous surgery that a piece of the cartilage wasn’t connected with the bone. It was only close but it wasn’t fixed.

“He fixed the cartilage to the bone and now it is a completely different situation. He was worried when he saw the dark area because there was a chance he had osteoporosis, which deteriorates your bone and you have to implant the cartilage and it can take six months and even then you don’t know if you can play at the top level.

“Fortunately there wasn’t this problem, now he can be very positive for the future in his career. It makes me sad but obviously two months is similar to Jay McEveley and makes me think we can have him ready for the last part of the season.”