By Paul Holmes
August 20 2002

Millwall striker Richard Sadlier faces at least another 2 months on the touchlines after his hip injury hasn't healed as fast as the club hoped it would. The 23-year-old missed the summers World Cup to have a much needed operation on the hip and was expcted to be back for the start of the season. "The week before the season it looked like Richard was only just short of being ready to start against Rotherham", Millwall boss Mark McGhee said to the clubs official site.

But it became clear that the hip which was operated on in the summer has not fully healed and Sads has been back to see the specialist who performed the operation.

"We were told at the time that this problem can take anything from 12 weeks to almost a year to clear up, and we were hopeful that Richard would be fit in just over the 12 weeks.

"But now we are resigned to the fact that he will not kick a ball again for two months. He is going to have an injection under general anaesthetic which will enable him to do some fitness work in the meantime, but clearly we are going to have to do without him for quite a while yet."

The news comes as a double blow to McGhee who is also without Steven Reid for four weeks with an ankle injury.