He's crocked.
I don't think anyone is suggesting it's fine.
He's been crocked for the best part of two years.
That quad injury he got v Brighton in August 2021, and then aggravated when the pig man insisted he came back to training a few weeks later, was as bad as the one Gbamin suffered in 2019.
Ever since then it's been a constant case of catch-up. They finally thought they had him fit last summer and his knee popped in a shooting drill.
He's not been helped by the fact that the club, led by two DoFs (one of whom had much more time than the other) and several managers as well as idiot owner and inept board, have failed to replace him in any adequate manner so he's been relied on to come back each time and never be fully fit.
Irony is had Benitez not absolutely insisted on Rondon as his striker in 2021 then we'd have got Openda or Beto, who Brands and his team wanted, and we could have actually had a player who could fill in adequately.