Leeds United striker Somma returns to light training

Davide Somma is closing in on a return to full training for Leeds United. The 27-year-old has been sidelined since suffering tearing his anterior cruciate knee ligaments in pre-season training for the 2011/12 season. Somma had been earmarked for a return back in March but suffered a major setback in his rehabilitation. But now manager Neil Warnock has revealed he could be ready to join the rest of the Leeds squad in the next few of weeks, although he did warn it could be some time before Somma is ready to play first-team football again. "He's doing a little bit more training now, not just straight line running," Warnock says. "I asked about him two weeks ago and was told it was going to be four weeks before he started full training. By that reckoning it should be another four weeks before he's having some sort of a game." Warnock added: "But it's like anything – when you've not got a striker and you're desperate for one, you only think of the good things about him. You don't think that he hasn't played for God knows how long or how unfit he'll be, irrespective of the training he's done. "I've got to be careful or the expectations on him will be massive but it would be great to have him in the squad, even on the bench for a 25-minute cameo – something to change a game, which I believe he can do." Somma's chances of winning a place in the South African squad for the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations would depend on being able to prove his fitness in time. But with no sign of him playing any part until at least November, coach Gordon Igesund will be unlikely to take the risk.

Somma back in the frame at Leeds

Davide Somma is expected to be fit for the start of pre-season and will return to the training pitch with a vote of confidence from the club's assistant manager, Mick Jones.The Yorkshire Evening Post report that the South African international appears to be winning his battle against the knee injury which required two operations and forced him to miss the whole of this season.Somma suffered cruciate ligament damage in the early stages of Leeds’ last pre-season programme and saw his hopes of an on-schedule comeback ended when Leeds sent him for a fresh bout of surgery in March.The 27-year-old was expected to play a major role in the 2011-12 campaign having broken into Leeds United’s first team during the previous year but his recent set-back left him fighting to be ready for the opening day of the forthcoming Championship term.
Manager Neil Warnock revealed that Somma is on course to take part in pre-season, which begins provisionally for Leeds on July 4 and in earnest on July 11, and he admitted that Jones had identified much to admire in the striker’s game.
Warnock said: “Mick loves him. I’ve not seen a lot of him but Mick has and he loves him.
“But you just don’t know when you’ve had injuries like that. When you’ve been out for the length of time he has it’s difficult to predict if a player can sustain the top level of Championship football.”