Neill to miss Manchester City match

Lucas Neill will miss the start of the new Barclays Premier League season after scan results revealed that the Australian defender has sustained minor knee ligament damage.

Our new Club Captain suffered the injury in training on Monday and, while early speculation suggested that he might be out for a month or more, the official diagnosis has proved much more positive.

Head of Physiotherapy George Cooper says: "Lucas unfortunately twisted his knee when blocking a shot in training, and at first we feared that he made have suffered significant damage to his medial ligament.

"However, the scan results are far better than predicted and show that there is more damage to the muscles around the knee than the actual medial ligament itself, which has actually sustained only very, very minor damage.

"He has already made fantastic progress since sustaining the injury and will definitely be back in action inside a month. He is now working hard alongside Scotty Parker, who is also making excellent progress from his knee injury, and the two of them are really pushing each other, so I'm certain we will see them back in action very soon."