The former Chelsea man was looking forward to the trip back to Stamford Bridge at the end of this month but does not want to risk causing further damage to the knee injury he picked up against Tottenham Hotspur in the FA Cup third round.

"I had just come back from the rib injury, patiently training and biding my time," he told the club's official website. "Then in the last 10 seconds of injury time I get injured, ironic really.

"You just want to be playing, you don't want to be on the sidelines because you feel even more useless. I feel I have let the team down a bit as it's all hands to the pumps.

"I can't do it if I'm only 75 per cent fit and am going to do myself an injustice.

"The manager needs to put somebody in who is 110 per cent fit."

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