Bosnich bowled over

The Chelsea goalkeeper Mark Bosnich's attempt to rebuild his career has suffered a blow after he was ruled out of action for a month with a thigh injury. Bosnich had only just returned to first-team football after a frustrating nine months on the sidelines at Stamford Bridge since signing from Manchester United in January.

His recent displays in the Premiership have gone some way to rebuilding the 29-year-old Australian's footballing reputation after he left Old Trafford in acrimonious circumstances, having fallen out with the manager, Sir Alex Ferguson.

However, Bosnich picked up an injury in Sunday's 0-0 draw at Everton and is likely to be unavailable to the Chelsea coach, Claudio Ranieri, until Christmas.

Gwyn Williams, the assistant manager, confirmed: "Mark Bosnich has a torn thigh muscle and will unfortunately be out of action for a month."

That means Bosnich will miss out on returning to Old Trafford with Chelsea a week on Saturday, a game he was undoubtedly keen to feature in. Fortunately for Chelsea both Ed de Goey, who started the season as first-choice keeper, and Carlo Cudicini have recovered from the injury problems that gave Bosnich his initial chance.

Everton's injury-prone striker, Duncan Ferguson, has had an operation on his damaged ankle and will be out for a minimum of two weeks.

Ferguson, who has not completed a full game for more than a month and was only risked for the final 15 minutes of the goalless draw with Chelsea, had surgery on Monday. His absence adds to the manager Walter Smith's problems in attack.

Kevin Campbell is struggling with a back problem and is rated by Smith as "extremely doubtful" for Saturday's trip to Leicester City. Smith had to utilise the defender Steve Watson in attack against Chelsea, and could continue with him in that role at Filbert Street.

The decision to use Watson as an emergency striker was taken because Smith considered his other options – Joe-Max Moore and Danny Cadamarteri – as being too similar to his only fit frontman, the Canadian international Tomasz Radzinski.

Jesper Blomqvist, who has featured for the Toffees' reserves since signing from Manchester United on a free transfer this month, could also be in line for his first team debut at Leicester

Ferguson's operation was to remove a piece of chipped bone from his ankle. The Scottish striker has been limited to three substitute appearances in the last matches at Goodison Park after last playing for a full 90 minutes in the game at Ipswich on 13 October.