Ryan Christie has revealed that he has had four plates inserted in his face and still has no feeling in some teeth following his horror collision with Dom Ball in the semi-final of the Scottish Cup.
The Celtic midfielder had headed the ball in the centre of the park when his former Team-mate arrived a split second too late crashing into the left side of Christie’s face.
After a six minute stoppage he was stretchered off the park and admitted that he has no memory of the day between walking out onto the pitch at Hampden and being visited in hospital late at night.
Christie is still showing bruising from the injury and has set a target of being fit for pre-season training in the middle of June.
Discussing his injury the Daily Record reports:
I broke my cheekbone, fractured my eye socket in two places and my jaw. They cut in under and just above my eye, the side of my head and into my mouth – four different places.
They put a plate into my cheek and one into the side of my head. I thanked the surgeon. I know how hard a job he had of trying to make it as symmetrical as possible but I think I’ll have a stronger cheekbone than I had before so I’ll be able to take a punch if I ever need to.
I haven’t had surgery like that before so it was a bit scary at first. I still don’t have any feeling in some of my teeth at that side or down my cheek. A few boys have contacted me who have had cheek ops. Dorus de Vries and two boys at Inverness have so it is nice when you see they are back to normal
I can’t remember posting the pics, although I did receive great messages from well-wishers. Boys I played with in the past all got in touch and it is amazing the amount of messages I got.”
Christie looked like he would be on his way out of Celtic during the early stages of the season but hit a fantastic burst of form in the autumn that culminated in scoring the winning goal in the Betfred Cup Final and signing a new three year contract.
Coming in from left field!https://t.co/NhYc1fZcSW
— Joe McHugh (@videocelts) May 16, 2019