Surgery could force Lampard and Terry to miss England trip to US

Frank Lampard has revealed that he and his Chelsea team-mate John Terry could miss England's post-season tour to the United States because they need minor foot operations.

Sven Goran Eriksson could still decide to call up the pair but it is more likely the England coach would err on the side of caution.

Lampard said yesterday that if Chelsea reached the Champions' League final and he had "the foot done straight afterwards, that would rule me out of the England tour. John has had a similar problem for some time and his looks worse than mine."

England have a two-match trip to the United States at the end of this month, facing the home nation and Colombia, and several club managers have expressed reservations about the wisdom of the tour. Eriksson will make sure that he does not endanger the long-term fitness of any player, especially those with existing injury concerns.

Lampard explained: "The problem is between the little toe and the next one. It's a hole in the skin which flares up. You can pad it and play on without too much of a problem but there's discomfort from time to time. It flared up last Saturday at Bolton and I could feel it a bit but it's nowhere near bad enough for me to contemplate not playing. I'll keep going until hopefully after the Champions' League final and then have a little operation to clean it out."

Lampard's team-mate William Gallas said that the fact he had has been playing with a back problem in recent weeks underlined his commitment to Chelsea. The Frenchman, who is acting as emergency left-back, wants reassurances that he will be restored to a central defensive role next season but reiterated that he was not seeking a move.