The Crystal Palace defender has returned to training following a lengthly absence from first team action.
Crystal Palace’s Pape Souare and Swansea’s Wayne Routledge
Crystal Palace defender Pape Souare has handed fans of the Eagles a double boost in the aftermath of their 3-0 humbling of Arsenal – where goals from Andros Townsend, Yohan Cabaye and Luka Milivojevic heaped further misery on Gunners manager Arsene Wenger.
Indeed, the day after the excellent result against Arsenal, Senegal international Souare took to his Twitter account to post an short clip of his first day running – following eight months of rehabilitation on a broken jaw and leg suffered in a serious car crash on the M4 last September.
Souare, who had established himself as the first choice left back at Selhurst Park at the time of the crash, started his long road to recovery at Palace’s Beckenham training ground on Tuesday morning – alongside fitness coach Scott Guyett.
The short clip that the 26-year-old posted to social media following the session was accompanied by the caption, ‘FIRST DAY running’ – and received widespread well wishes from many Palace fans.
Crystal Palace’s Papa Souare and West Hams’s Enner Valencia
After signing for the Eagles in 2015, Souare made his breakthrough to regular Premier League football during the 2015-16 season, making 34 appearances as Palace reached the FA Cup final, ultimately losing to Manchester United in extra time.
Whether Souare can complete an admirable comeback and regain his starting spot at Palace remains to be seen; particularly in light of boss Sam Allardyce’s January recruitments of two forward-thinking left backs with similar traits to Souare – Patrick Van Aanholt and Jeffrey Schlupp – but the reception on Twitter to the former Lille man’s return was certainly cause for celebration amongst Palace supporters.
Comments ranged from congratulating the left back, to perhaps an overly-optimistic plea for a Souare appearance in Palace’s final league game of the season.
Here is a taste of the reaction from Crystal Palace fans to Pape Souare’s tweet regarding his first day of running since September’s car crash.
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