Matthew is recovering from the op, which was carried out last Tuesday, and the club's Head Physiotherapist explains:
"He had a keyhole operation done to his abdomen to repair some damage that had occurred around the groin.
"As the games have stepped up this season he had increasingly complained of aching and abdominal discomfort, and had been putting up with it for quite a while.
"The decision was made to have a laparoscopic operation as the recovery time is supposed to be rapid.
"Matthew wanted to try that approach first and there have been some very good results with senior players in the Premiership - Darius Vassell had it done recently.
"He is now in his sixth post-operative day and we are seeing how the injury responds - but it is an aggressive and accelerated rehab programme.
"We will try and get him ready this week and hopefully the only games he will potentially miss will be QPR and possibly Stoke.
"The plan is to try and get him ready in time for the Gillingham game and then obviously Chelsea following that."
John personally witnessed the operation take place in the Midlands and he adds:
"It is a new operation for us; normally we have had a traditional approach to these operations where the recovery period has been four to five weeks.
"This surgeon advocates that 80% of players for this procedure get back in two to three weeks - and we are hoping that Matthew is one of those.
"I drove up to Leicester to where David Lloyd was doing the operation as I was interested to see how it was done.
"It was very informative and we have got a video of the operation for Mattie to keep which is pretty gory!
"He has watched it with me and some of the other boys at the training ground and it is very informative.
"A number of other clubs have tried this approach with varied success; this area of the body isn't black or white and there are a lot of opinions about the groin as to what is the most appropriate operation to do.
"The procedures we have had done in the past by Stephen Snookes have been very successful on players such as Frank Lampard, Michael Carrick, Ian Bishop, Peter Butler and Glen Johnson.
"They did really well after their operations - but the benefit of this particular approach is that the recovery time is reduced.
"We still have the option that if this is not successful, and we certainly hope it will be, we can do the traditional operation that we would have had done.
"But it was felt appropriate at this time of the season to get it done the way we are to get him back as quickly as possible - bearing in mind we had this two week break."