Albert Sambi Lokonga has revealed he’s facing a couple of months on the sidelines after picking up an injury three weeks into his loan spell at Luton Town.
The Belgium international moved to Kenilworth Road hoping to kick-start his Premier League career after a frustrating two seasons at Arsenal that saw him drop down the pecking order and then, totally out of contention.
There were high expectations when Lokonga joined the Gunners from Anderlecht for £17.5 million but he struggled to replace Thomas Partey as the club’s holding midfielder and never looked comfortable further up the pitch.
In January, he went on loan to Crystal Palace but played only 536 minutes. He returned to London Colney for pre-season training but missed the trip to Germany and subsequent tour of the USA after picking up a knock.
It’s unclear whether this new problem is related but it’ll come as a huge blow to the 23-year-old after he’d started Luton’s last two games.
Taking to Instagram, Lokinga revealed: “I thought it was my time to enjoy playing this beautiful game called football and work hard helping my teammates to reach our goal as a team.
“Unfortunately, an injury came to delay everything. I’ll be focused on my recovery and support the team during that time. See you in a couples of month [sic]. God is good all the time.”
While the Hatters picked up their first point of the season against Wolves, few are expecting them to stay up after a tough start to life in the top tier.
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I saw him on Motd couple of weeks back.
He was light years ahead of most others on the pitch.
Substituted at about 70 mins for some reason
Unlucky his spell at palace was short because Viera was sacked i think. Now this injury, hope he comes back strong. If he does not make it hope he fetches a good fee.
Get well soon, son.🙏🏾
waste of space.Literally.How are we ever going to offload him.light years ahead of everyone? 😂 The closest light year he is to is Buzz light year.To infinity & beyond with him.
You are a despicable person.
I’m assuming your name is ironic but given the abject standard of this attempt at humour I’m not so sure.
For Pete’s sake.
And yet you are no where close to his ability or courage, or we would have heard of you. Stay positive Pete.
We seem to be cursed, I’ve lost count of how many of our players seem to go out on loan and end up injured.
I hope he recovers and enjoys the rest of the season,
A big problem is probably that he hadn’t in nearly 2 seasons before the loan. You can’t go from nothing to starting premier league games, and an easy way to avoid these problems is to stop players rotting away in the first place.
Austen Trusty worked out, but yeah, it’s hit or miss. Patino is doing well.
Speedy Recovery, brother