Mattia Destro To Have Knee Surgery

This is one of those not-quite-unsubstantial pieces of news, for a couple of reasons. Mattia Destro will be going under the knife for a meniscus tear - back in my day, we used to call that "Wednesday" - and though no timetable has been given, the timeframe of two months is currently being tossed about. The real problem, however, is this:

- Pablo Osvaldo is now the lone true striker, and we all know how good he is at not getting suspended. (Mmhmm. Somebody please tie his arms to his body for the remainder of the winter.)

- Nico Lopez is both a striker and absolutely tearing up the South American u20, but Zeman doesn't seem to want to use him. At all.

- Tallo's already gone. Unused, but he was at least a body.

- Marquinho is a solid LW replacement, allowing Totti to push over in emergency, but he wants out, so this may slightly impact their thoughts on whether or not they want an unhappy llama still on the payroll.

So good job on the timing - it'd be a rather large pain in the arse were this to have happened February 2nd, or so - and now they can go about the rest of the window with this - and Maarten Stekelenburg's feelings - in mind.

But in silver linings, corner flags can finally rest easy at night.