Toronto FC PR just released the following statement on Ashtone Morgan:

Ashtone Morgan Injury Update pic.twitter.com/QrE6UNH3Yb — Toronto FC PR (@TorontoFCPR) February 16, 2017

At time of writing, there was no further information available and I could not find out which bone had been operated on for this particular surgery.

However, with the timetable of 6-8 weeks, and the wording of “to repair a stress fracture in his foot” leads me to believe that it is most likely a 5th metatarsal body fracture, and less likely a navicular fracture.

Assuming that it is a 5th met fracture that was repaired, I would ascertain that 6 weeks is when we see Morgan returning to light training, and 8-10 weeks when he can fully go. The procedure essentially involves replacing the cancelleous bone portion with a full body screw to handle the weight and stress in future.

The long term prognosis of this injury is promising, especially for a sport like soccer, as the screw is able to handle more weight and stress than the bone alone. However, it is not uncommon for athletes to have a few setbacks at the beginning of their return. Think Kevin Durant, who returned from a similar surgery.

Morgan can be reasonably expected back in the lineup by May if all goes well, but it may be tough to find minutes with Chris Mavinga already having a 2 month head start to acclimate himself to MLS play. This is tough news, as just yesterday in our WTR Roundtable discussion, we spoke about Ashtone being a player who could make an impact on the 2017 campaign for the Reds.

Note: as more information becomes available, any updates to this story will be posted to the Waking The Red Twitter account