Green will miss start of season after surgery on groin injury

Robert Green could be ruled out for between three and four months by the groin injury which ended his World Cup hopes.

The downbeat prognosis means that the England goalkeeper is also likely to be missing for up to two months of next season's Championship campaign with Norwich City.

Green sustained the injury nearly an hour into last Thursday's B international against Belarus at the Madejski Stadium in Reading after coming on at half-time in place of David James. He stepped up to take a goal-kick, collapsed in agony and saw Vitaly Kutozov roll the ball past him for the Belarus equaliser.

Green had surgery in Bradford at the weekend to repair the damaged muscle tissue, and Norwich's physiotherapist, Neal Reynolds, said the operation "went as well as could be hoped".

"Robert is recovering well, all things considered. He will be on crutches for the next two to three weeks and then it's a case of sitting down and working out his rehabilitation programme moving forward," he said.

"The original assessment that he is likely to miss the start of the season is still the case, with the surgeon estimating something in the region of three to four months being the likely time-frame.

"But one thing I will say is that Robert always gives it the absolute maximum when he is in rehab, so we will just have to see how things go in the weeks ahead."