Thanks for that one mate. I've now been back in England for 2 and a half months now so have been seeing physios and have had another Wikipedia reference-linkMRI which just showed there to be thickening of the ligament consistent with a chronic MCL sprain.

There has definitely been some improvement, and I'm doing strengthening exercises for the quads twice a day, cycling 8 miles a day and stretching hamstrings, calfves and quads daily too so I'm hopeful, but progress is still ridiculously slow.

I was recommended to start doing some running and other things to help get me back playing some sport, but when I attended an hour's returning to sport physio session I was set back a full week and a half, even though I didn't really feel any pain at the time. I even tried taking it even slower, starting off with 3 minutes of running/changing direction a lot which was fine, then upped it to 5 minutes the day before yesterday and yet that time it made it sore again (not as bad as after the hour session) and I'm still having more aching today than I did before the running.

The knee doesn't feel weak at all, and I'm told there's not a lot of laxity or whatever, but I can't understand why it still aches after sitting down for medium-long periods. I've found that when I do the 'wall sit' exercise it stops the pain for a bit, but the aching gets more annoying as the day goes on whatever I'm doing.

It's not really painful, but I'm just so desperate to get back to playing football it's killing me. The physio said it shouldn't be too much longer but I'm worried that the MRI missed something as sometimes when I do the wall sit exercise my knee cap hurts and today I've had some pain under the knee cap on the same side as the MCL, potentially in the miniscus area, when I walk which I can agitate a bit further by pushing/rubbing it hard. (Incidentally, to complete the picture, the aching I get when I sit down is just a general aching across the whole knee whereas when I get the odd twinge from stretching slightly awkwardly or when I tried a standing stretch for my hip flexors it's in the region of the MCL)

What's going on?!?!?!??!?! Should I avoid doing any running etc or is my physio right that this aching for days afterwards is helping it get stronger afterwards? Is it likely other things could be going on with my knee aside from the MCL and if so how can i get someone to believe me when it wasn't picked up on the MRI?

Any advice is greatly received, and yet again thank you for everyone who's taken the time to give me their advice so far.

Sam