Hutchinson ‘delighted’ with injury prognosis

A visibly upset Sam Hutchinson leaves the field injured against Watford on Saturday.

The summer signing from Chelsea, who has only played a handful of games this season due to a back injury, lasted just six minutes in his comeback against Watford last Saturday before hobbling off.

A scan has revealed cartilage damage to the same knee which he has struggled with since his Stamford Bridge days, and at one time forced him to retire from professional football.

The latest injury will keep him sidelined for two months, but Hutchinson has been told it is not the injury which has plagued his career.

“It is not his old injury,” said Owls’ coach Stuart Gray. “It is a new injury in the knee. The specialist has examined his knee.

“You are probably looking at a timescale of two months that Sam is going to be out for with his knee injury.

“He is delighted because he thought, first and foremost, it was going to be his old injury. He’s going to be a while so we have to move on.

“It is a blow. Players don’t want to be in the treatment room. It is disappointing but that’s the hand we have been dealt and we’ve got to get on with it.”

Signing Hutchinson in the summer, with his injury record, was a gamble but on his day the 25-year-old shows his obvious Premier League pedigree.

“When we do sign players, they have medicals and Sam had this history of knee problems,” Gray insisted. “Straight away on Saturday, we thought it was his old knee injury.

“The surgeon who did the operation examined him yesterday. He said it was fine.

“(Hutchinson) is relieved. The specialist has given him an uplift because he was very, very down and disappointed. There was so much swelling in there that you automatically think the worst.

“It’s a bit of a relief for him but he’s just got that long process of getting fit again.”

The Owls are also missing full-backs Lewis Buxton and Joe Mattock for tomorrow’s Championship visit of Norwich City to Hillsborough.

Left-back Buxton is out with a knee problem, although he has resumed training, while Mattock serves a one-match supension for picking up five bookings.