Mick McCarthy, the Wolves manager, has revealed that Michael Kightly will require an ankle operation that will rule him out for up to eight weeks.
Kightly, 23, visited a specialist having been forced off half an hour into Sunday’s 1-0 home defeat by Birmingham, with scans indicating that he requires surgery.
With Wolves struggling, the news is a setback for McCarthy but the prognosis is not as bad as he first feared. “The way he went over and rolled his ankle apparently he’s quite lucky - it could have been worse,” McCarthy said. “He was really down about it but he’s brightened up because it looks like being six to eight weeks.”
McCarthy and Kevin Doyle, the club’s record signing, have both admitted that the side are struggling from a lack of confidence.Wolves, who produced one of their worst performances of the season on Sunday, are second from bottom in the Premier League and four points adrift of safety.
“Confidence is a growing problem at the moment,” McCarthy said. “You can watch it out there but you can’t inject it into them though. There is no medication you can take.”
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Doyle, however, is confident, the side can turn their season around. “The two results against Arsenal and Chelsea have hurt us and we need to recover,” he said. “We have the players here but we need to get ourselves out of this bad patch.”