Murphy sustained the problem during Monday evening's 2-0 victory over Hull City in the Barclays Premier League.

He is sure to miss Thursday's Europa League match against Roma, with manager Roy Hodgson confirming his skipper has joined a growing injury list.

"Danny Murphy joins the injury list that we had for the Hull game, which is Dickson Etuhu, Andy Johnson and Simon Davies," Hodgson told the club's official website.

"Unfortunately Danny got injured during our game against Hull on Monday evening. We're still assessing the injury and hoping it isn't extremely serious but it's serious enough to keep him out of Thursday's game and the game at the weekend and maybe longer but we're hoping the tendon that was damaged is still attached and that there will be no need for an operation.

"We'll be very lucky if he comes back before the next international window. I'm really hoping because there is an international window he'll have even longer to recover. I would seriously hope that he would be fit after that but that's the best we can hope for at the moment.

"He's the Captain of the team and a very good player. He's been playing very well for us and every team misses their good players. It's the same loss in the same way as Johnson, Davies and Etuhu are losses but you have to put up with that in football and that's why you have a squad of players.

"I was very pleased with Jonathan Greening when he came on for Danny the other night and Chris Baird did an excellent job replacing Dickson Etuhu so I can only hope they will continue in the same vein and continue to play well so we don't miss the players that are injured."

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