Tottenham defender Michael Dawson will see a specialist about his troublesome Achilles injury next week amid fears the defender could require surgery that will keep him out of action for months.
Dawson suffered the injury shortly after Spurs' 5-1 defeat against Manchester City on August 28. The initial diagnosis was the defender would be out for two months, but he raised hopes he would make an early return two weeks ago when he started running with the rest of the Spurs squad.
However Spurs' medical staff have deemed Dawson must now see a specialist. Manager Harry Redknapp said: "Michael is going for a scan on Wednesday on his Achilles and at the moment he's not feeling happy with it. It could be a long-term problem for him."
He added: "Michael started to run but didn't feel good. He felt the same pain, had another scan and now has to go to specialist on Wednesday again to see why.
"Until he sees the specialist we don't know if they want to operate on him, which we don't want.An operation would be a long job, we're hoping there is nothing there and it's part of what he'll feel from scar tissue or something. The last resort is an operation."
Losing Dawson for an even longer spell than first thought would be a big blow to the defender as he missed three months of last season after undergoing knee surgery.
Thanks to the form of Ledley King and Younes Kaboul, Spurs have not felt Dawson's absence too much, but another injury to King left Redknapp with only two fit centre halves last week - Kaboul and Sebastien Bassong.
Source: PA
Source: PA