Lengthy lay-off for Jeffers

Sheffield Wednesday striker Francis Jeffers could be facing up to four months on the sidelines, club physio Mark Palmer confirmed.

The former England striker suffered serious ankle ligament damage in the recent 4-2 win against Stoke and Palmer said the injury was one of the worst he has ever seen.

“With regards to Francis Jeffers he has been to see a surgeon over the last couple of weeks to have some scans and those scans confirmed that he has some serious ligament damage on both sides of the ankle which is a little bit unusual,” he told the club’s official website. www.swfc.co.uk.

“We’ll rehabilitate him conservatively for between six and eight weeks and then if Franny has tolerated that and his ankle seems stable then we can push on from there – we’ve put a time frame of approximately four months on Franny’s return.”

“It was difficult to see the exact problem initially and the X-rays were inconclusive because the ankle was so swollen – it was one of the most swollen ankles I’ve ever seen.”