Millwall club record signing Mihailo Ivanovic set to see ‘top specialist’ in London this week
Millwall are set to get a further timeline on a playing return date for club record signing Mihailo Ivanovic when he sees a specialist later this week in the capital.
The Lions splashed in the region of £3million on the 19-year-old striker.
But head coach Neil Harris revealed after the 3-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday before the international break that Ivanovic was set to be out for a number of weeks with a metatarsal issue.
Serbia still called up Ivanovic ahead of the Nations League matches and he was pictured in some of their training sessions. But towards the end of last week it was confirmed that the Serbian FA had chosen to withdrew Ivanovic from their matches against Spain and Denmark – adding he also had a hamstring injury.
Millwall had supplied the Serbian national team with their results from Ivanovic’s medical that he completed after a deal was agreed with Vojvodina on deadline day.
Harris told the South London Press today: “I can see from the outside why it might look like there was a dispute of sorts between the Serbian national team and the football club, but that wasn’t the case.
“I think everyone needs to understand that FIFA rules are that the national team will overrule any football team worldwide, including ourselves and a different nation.
“All our job is to supply details to the Serbian FA on where we think Mihailo is at. We would have ruled him out of our game against Sheffield Wednesday due to injury.
“The Serbian FA wanted to see him personally and Mihailo wanted to go. We wanted Mihailo to go and meet up with the national team because it’s a great honour for him.
“He hasn’t been capped. To get the call up and to meet the Serbian head coach and players for the first time, is a great honour. I would have loved to have been in that position as an England player to be able to do that.
“We thought it was really important that he went. The debate over training, they made a judgement call in the first few days and then decided to maybe take a step backwards and let him come back to England and follow the procedure that we have set up.
“He’s going to see a specialist this week here to determine what the next step is for him. At the moment, that’s unclear until Thursday afternoon to determine what the next steps are going to be.
“He will see a top specialist in London and then we will be able to make a formal plan off that.
“We will update everybody after Thursday to what the future looks like for Mihailo in the coming weeks, days and months.
“We’re very hopeful that there is going to be a resolution very quickly and that he’s on the pitch in the short term for us.
“The bigger picture is that he’s signed a long term contract with us. He’s been called up to the Serbian national team at 19. His pedigree and potential is there for everyone to see.
“The bright future that we all hope he’s got has been well-documented in Serbia, is important to the Serbian FA. We have a very good working relationship with the Serbian FA.”