Former Hearts player fighting to play before the season ends

Former Hearts forward Uche Ikpeazu is battling to play before the season ends after injury ruined his first year with St Johnstone. The giant Englishman has been sidelined with a knee problem suffered in a freak accident at home just before the campaign started, and has yet to don a Saints shirt. The Perth club say they are confident he will make a comeback before the summer.

Ikpeazu is making progress having undergone knee surgery three times in the last year and Simo Valakari, the St Johnstone manager, revealed today that the striker believes he will be back soon. “Uche said that he will play this season,” Valakari told The Courier. “He knows his body and it would be brilliant if he was right. He’s pushing and pushing. Let’s see.

“The last exploratory operation gave him the all-clear. Everything is right with the knee structure-wise. He wants to be back as quickly as possible. We want him to be back as quickly as possible. But we need to respect the laws of physics – you can’t overload it.

“Even though the time is short for this season, we need to do the right things for him. If we get something out of it this season, it will be a bonus. Definitely, it would be a bonus. But that’s what Uche is working for.”

England training ground at St George’s Park helped Ikpeazu recover

Ikpeazu used the English Football Association’s facilities at St George’s Park last year after the initial injury. He is now working in Perth aiming to return to competitive football in the next few weeks. “Uche has been working here,” said Valakari. “He’s been the first person into the ground in the mornings. He has been working very hard.

“It hasn’t been that Uche hasn’t wanted to come back. His body hasn’t been right. Now it is right. He will try his best to get back before the end of the season and help us.”

Ikpeazu joined Hearts from Cambridge United in summer 2018 after signing a pre-contract agreement. He was signed by the then-Tynecastle manager Craig Levein, who subsequently took him to McDiarmid Park last year. He was sold to Wycombe Wanderers two years later, and then moved on to Middlesbrough in 2021 in a deal worth up to £1m. Hearts earned a sizeable six-figure sum from that transfer due to a sell-on agreement they negotiated with Wycombe.

After a loan spell at Cardiff City, Ikpeazu left the UK and headed for Turkey to join Konyaspor in 2022. However, he did not last long there and was back in England the following year with Port Vale. Levein then agreed a deal to take him to St Johnstone last April, but player and club are eagerly awaiting his debut in a blue jersey.

Speaking last October about his ordeal, Ikpeazu explained: “It’s the longest I’ve been out. It’s my first knee injury,” he said. “It was a meniscus tear. It’s probably happened just from wear and tear without me knowing and I’d just been getting on with it. It wasn’t anything in particular that happened.

“One day I woke up and my knee had locked at an unnatural angle in bed. It was a big surprise because I was in great physical condition, training with a fitness coach in Manchester and looking forward to the season. But I have no doubt that I’ll recover and come back strongly from it.”