It's the same injury that Robert Pires and Gio van Bronckhorst have recently returned from, so Juan is expected to be out of action for a number of months.

Juan has been a regular for the reserves, and lauded as potential first team full-back cover in the near future. He would have played against Sunderland on Wednesday if not for this injury.

Some reports have said that we're short of cover for Ashley Cole now. But (perhaps strangely) Lauren and Luzhny have been used in that role this season ahead of Juan. With Gio returning from injury, and Upson coming back from loan in December, Juan's problem seems unlikely to affect our first-team line-ups for the rest of the season. It's a bad time for it to happen from his own point of view though, because he'll have been thinking in terms of establishing his first-team squad credentials for next season.