Doctors differ on Terry's recovery

SOCCER:John Terry underwent surgery yesterday to remove a slipped disc. The procedure was deemed successful but Chelsea's hope that their captain will return to action within weeks was contradicted by medical opinion suggesting he should remain out of the game for up to three months.

The operation was performed by Dr Jean Destandau at his clinic in the south-west of France. Destandau, whose keyhole technique is understood to reduce recovery time by weeks, removed a sequestrated lumbar disc.

Terry was last night expected to be back on his feet within hours of the laser surgery.

Although there was delight last night that the procedure had passed without a hitch, Chelsea will now want to get the England captain fit in time for the difficult trip to Liverpool on January 20th.

But one orthopaedic surgeon said last night Terry might be risking his long-term health if he rushed back to Premiership action.

"Sportsmen are a difficult bunch to deal with because they want to go back to their occupation as soon as the anaesthetic's worn off," said the surgeon.

"Common sense says that good healing tissue takes a minimum of six weeks to develop. If you push your luck coming back in any less than that time you're asking for trouble.

"Plenty of people do push their luck and get away with it. If I owned him I'd keep him on very light training for three months . . . get him match fit in three months' time to make the end of the season."

Chelsea are chasing Manchester United at the top of the Premiership and Terry and his manager, Jose Mourinho, are unlikely to settle with that prognosis. Forthcoming matches could prove critical to Chelsea's ambitions of landing a third successive Premiership title.

Liverpool are unbeaten at Anfield and have conceded only three goals in 10 home matches, scoring 20. Terry's last match coincided with Chelsea's last Premiership clean sheet, the 1-0 win against Newcastle United at Stamford Bridge. In the three fixtures since, without their captain to act as last outfield defender and leader, Chelsea have conceded six goals and fielded three different centre-back pairings.

So pivotal is the Liverpool fixture that Chelsea are expected to move to bolster their defence when the transfer window opens next month. Though there have not yet been definitive negotiations, Chelsea have shown signs they feel now is the time to invest a sum approaching £20 million in Manchester City's England defender Micah Richards.

Mourinho has even countenanced using Didier Drogba as a stop-gap centre-half. But the Premiership's leading scorer said: "I do not like to play at centre-back - but I do it for the team because sometimes we have difficult moments in the game."

Drogba added he felt recent results had diminished the psychological hold the champions of the past two years have had over opposition.

"It is something we have to think about," he said. "We cannot give the other teams the belief they can score, that they can win."

Meanwhile, Chelsea's most promising young striker, Ben Sahar, must pin his hopes on a member of Israel's parliament to avoid the military draft potentially ruining his Stamford Bridge career.

Sahar, a 17-year-old who has scored four goals in four starts with Chelsea's academy, is expected to have a big future with the Premiership champions.

He has already received international recognition and made a scoring debut for Israel's under-21 side against France in October. But it was after a recent visit to his homeland that he received his first call to the army.

That was the first step towards the statutory three-year spell all Israeli men must serve.But such is the sporting promise of Sahar and the national celebrity he has achieved as a Chelsea player that the Likud party member Haim Katz is proposing a "Ben Sahar bill" to ensure Israel's national football team is not damaged by disruption to its leading players' overseas careers.

Guardian Service