Christian Benteke Gives Palace Fans Promising Fitness Update After Ligament Injury

Crystal Palace striker Christian Benteke has revealed that he hopes to back to full fitness in a few weeks, in order to impress Belgium manager Roberto Martinez ahead of the 2018 World Cup.

The 26-year-old suffered ligament damage during Palace's devastating 5-0 loss to Manchester City at the end of September, and has been watching his team struggle from the sidelines ever since.

However, the Belgian seems to think that he's progressing well in his road to recovery, and that he'll be back to playing again soon.

"The rehab is going really well and I'm feeling really happy with the way that my ligament is healing, so hopefully I can be back in a few weeks," Benteke told Sky Sports.

"Playing in the World Cup is a big motivation but it's only going to improve my performances at the club.

"I really want to help the team and do well this year to make sure I'm in the squad."

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Benteke find himself in competition with Manchester United striker Romelu Lukaku for a spot in the Belgium starting line-up in the summer; but the former Liverpool attacker realises the quality that his nation provides, and maintains that the most important thing is the success of his country:

"We were already qualified so the most important thing was to finish first in the group and that's what we did." He added.

"Now we have to wait and see what the draw is going to look like.

"Our generation has more than 11 players who play in England and the quality and the level of them is really high, so we have to keep it up and be proud of our country."