Grainger blues for Birmingham

Birmingham City FC defender Martin Grainger will miss the next three months of English Premiership football after sustaining a knee injury.

Christmas return
The experienced left-sided defender will be out of contention until Christmas after a scan yesterday revealed that he has ruptured his patella tendon and will require corrective surgery.

Major blow
The news has come as a major blow to Birmingham manager Steve Bruce who had initially believed that Grainger was only suffering from a calf strain which would have put him out of action for just a couple of weeks.

Training injury
"Martin had a bit of a calf problem last weekend but when he was doing his rehabilitation work he felt something in his knee," said Bruce. "He was just doing some running in a straight line as part of his rehabilitation work when the injury happened. He obviously had a weakness there and it decided to go yesterday."

Stretched resources
The loss of Grainger will stretch the newly promoted side's defensive ability to the limit with Steve Vickers, Olivier Tebily and Michael Johnson already sidelined through injury. Johnson underwent surgery yesterday on a groin problem, Tebily has still not recovered from a hamstring tear and captain Vickers is not yet ready to return after a knee operation.

Bruce soldiers on
"It is a big blow to us," admitted Bruce. "With the injuries we've already got, it stretches us to the limit but we've just got to get on with things. It's a pity because over the past few weeks we have looked defensively pretty sound. We just have to hope that some of the players return from injury in the next couple of weeks but we certainly don't want anyone else out."