Sunderland boss Steve Bruce says deciding whether or not to pursue the signing of John Mensah this summer will be one of the hardest choices he ever has to make as a manager.
The outstanding defender leads Ghana out against Germany in the World Cup on Wednesday, with a draw guaranteeing his country will go through to the knockout stage.
And Bruce, who has a good chance of getting the player on loan again next season, will
watch the match and as he weighs up what to do about a player whose quality is undoubted but whose injury record is horrendous.
Bruce said: "It will be one of the toughest managerial decisions of my career – deciding whether we push to take him again.
"I love John Mensah as a professional and as a player, but the question I've got to ask myself is how much time on the pitch will we get out of him.
"He's very much like Ledley King at Spurs in the sense that when he's fit, you couldn't ask for a better defender in your side. When he's fit, he's Champions League standard.
"But that's the big question: how often is he fit?
"It's something I need to address."
Mensah played 17 games for Sunderland on loan from Lyon last season, but did not finish a single one of them.
A serious back problem which leads on to other injuries wrecked his campaign, but, when he did play, he was superb.
Bruce remains a massive admirer of the Ghanaian and is convinced that if he could have kept a first-choice pairing of Mensah and Michael Turner together throughout last season, the Black Cats would comfortably have finished in the top half of the Premier League.
But the defender's injury problems are a real concern and Bruce does not want to be in the situation of continually having to rejig his defence in order to accommodate the African's windows of fitness.
Mensah wants to return to Sunderland and Lyon would consider another approach from Sunderland.
And despite the Black Cats' interest in Schalke centre-half Heiko Westermann, revealed in the Echo on Thursday, there remains scope for Mensah to return.
Bruce has four central defenders available, in Turner, Paulo Da Silva, Matt Kilgallon and Anton Ferdinand.
But Ferdinand's Sunderland future is far from certain, while question marks remain over whether Kilgallon and Da Silva can establish themselves in the Premier League.
If the Westermann approach comes off, then the plan would be for the German to partner Turner at the start of the new season.
But Mensah would be quite a player to have in reserve and Bruce will have been encouraged by the fact that he played the full 90 minutes in Ghana's opening 1-0 win over Serbia.
Over the next few days, the Sunderland manager will make up his mind. He said: "I need to find a player who will play alongside Michael Turner week in, week out, and I don't know if John Mensah is going to be that player.
"He's a fantastic footballer, but it's a really difficult one.
"We all know he's a top, top player, but it's hard to get him on the pitch and, if you're not on the pitch, you're not a top, top player.
"As a central defender, he's a key part of the team - it's not as if he's an impact player or a wide player and you need him to be playing regularly.
"I always think that you need to work on your back four and have them established and familiar and it's hard to do that with Johnny's problems with injuries.
"So we will have to wait and see, but, either way, it is going to be a difficult call to make."