Mirko Topic's Injury Recovery Progress
There is light appearing at the end of a very long injury tunnel for Mirko Topic at Norwich City, with Philippe Clement offering a positive update on his comeback from an ACL injury.
It has been nearly 11 months since the Serbian limped out of a 2-2 draw with Oxford United at Carrow Road, only Clement's second game in charge, but he is now approaching the final stretch of his rehabilitation.
Individual Training and Rehabilitation
Topic suffered his ACL injury just weeks after Ante Crnac endured the same setback, and part of his extensive recovery has taken place away from Norfolk.
Individual sports science coach Veselin Sekulovic has also been assisting that process, and Topic has returned to individual training with work ongoing to get him back into Championship contention.
Any return to the City frontline will be handled with caution; however, Clement offered an upbeat update on his progress.
“He's training individually. He's doing things with the ball. I think you've seen already some stuff on our social media about that,” the City boss said.
Future Plans for Topic's Return
Lucien Mahovo is a little bit ahead of him by coming back to the team and training with us, but Mirko is on the right track. So he's doing this last phase of his individual rehab.
Clement mentioned that Topic's return to play could involve U21 minutes, but he first needs to train with the main squad. “Like we're doing with Gabe now, building after this long time out, building first with the under-21s,” he added.
Topic only joined City at the start of the 2025/26 campaign in a £3.5m move from Portuguese side Famalicao and is yet to enjoy an extended period of work under Clement.
Some eagle-eyed supporters spotted that the 25-year-old was among the Canaries contingent who traveled to the Etihad Stadium last week, with Clement explaining the reason behind his presence in Manchester.
“He was in Manchester to do a biomechanical test after his ACL injury,” he explained. “There is a good facility in Manchester where we went before with Ante Crnac after his injury to get really good testing about his movement to see the final step of his rehab to see where he is and whether we need to tweak things.”
“He was with us for that reason and it was good for him to be with the team like that,” Clement concluded.
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