Kulusevski reveals he rejected knee transplant during 526-day injury nightmare at Spurs

Dejan Kulusevski has revealed he rejected a knee transplant as a treatment option during the 526-day injury layoff that kept him out of football for the entirety of Tottenham’s 2025/26 season and beyond.

The 26-year-old Swedish winger suffered a patella injury in a defeat to Crystal Palace in May 2025 and has only recently returned to action, coming off the bench in appearances against Coventry, Crystal Palace and Leeds United this season.

Speaking to Swedish outlet Fotbollskanalen, Kulusevski described the psychological toll of the ordeal, admitting he repeatedly told himself “it’s over, it’s over” and confessed to his mother that his treatment might not succeed. Doctors presented him with the option of a knee transplant — effectively swapping his knee for a donor’s — but warned it carried a “50/50” chance of setting his recovery back significantly.

“I spent the whole summer talking to other doctors about having another operation. It would have been a knee transplant — swapping my knee for someone else’s,” Kulusevski said. “So I said no: ‘This is what we’ll do: if I’m in pain when I play, I’ll just have to play through the pain.’ I trained and tried to live like a normal person. I trusted that it would work out. So far, I’ve been right.”

Kulusevski also credited former teammates Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Ivan Perisic for pointing him towards a specialist doctor in Serbia, whose certainty proved crucial to his mental recovery. “He was so sure it would work out. I needed someone by my side who would say to me: ‘Dejan, this is going to be fine.’ So he was important to me.”

The forward has now been called up to the Sweden squad for Nations League fixtures this month. Sweden sit top of Group B4 and are pushing for promotion to League A; an appearance against Bosnia and Herzegovina or Poland would mark Kulusevski’s first international outing in two years.