http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/aug/09/tottenham-steven-pienaar-groin-injury Tottenham's £3m midfielder Steven Pienaar has been ruled out for up to six weeks after undergoing groin surgery. The South Africa captain was forced to have the procedure after injuring himself in Spurs' final pre-season friendly, against Athletic Bilbao on Saturday. "Following scans and consultation with an independent groin specialist, Pienaar underwent groin surgery this morning," the club said on their website. "He was forced off in the first half against Athletic Bilbao and is expected to be sidelined with the injury for up to six weeks." That would rule Pienaar, 29, out of up to seven club games, starting with Saturday's Premier League opener against his previous club, Everton. He would also sit out the meetings with Manchester United, Manchester City and Liverpool, as well as this month's Europa League play-off tie against Hearts, and Tottenham's opening group match, should they qualify. Spurs appear well stocked in midfield but are still on the lookout for reinforcements, although they seem likely to fail in their latest bid to sign Real Madrid's Lassana Diarra, whose wage demands look likely to scupper any deal. The Spurs manager Harry Redknapp signed Diarra for Portsmouth in January 2008 and has made previous efforts to bring him to White Hart Lane. Tottenham are reportedly willing to listen to offers for Jermaine Jenas and Wilson Palacios to make space for a new midfielder, but are refusing to countenance any bids for Luka Modric. ------------ I heard Pienaar didn't ever get injured while at Everton but he seems to have spent most of his Spurs career injured?
Strange, isn't it? He's really struggled since he's signed for us, but we've got loads of cover in the positions that he can play in, so it shouldn't be a massive problem for us. Hope we get to see the best of him at some point soon and he recovers quickly, though. Annoyingly, he may just get back to full fitness in time to go to the African Nations.
Probably did it stretching himself to do the extra work Niko, Pav and Hudd didn't want to do...its a possibility.
A bizarre signing. Been very average since joining... because he is very average. Should be plying his trade in the spl or similar lowly standards
for those that were unaware he has had injury issues before with Everton. So this is nothing new. Hope he isn't another "sicknote"
Not sure why we bought him, to be honest. He might work hard but makes up for it with his lack of talent
Pienaar was one of the better players in a very good Everton side. He may not be good enough to start every week but he is certainly up there with the rest of our squad in terms of ability, he's just been a bit unlucky since joining us. Get off his back.
I think that he's a good player, but his reduced transfer fee definitely played a part in us signing him.
I've only seen Pienaar play for Spurs, and it seemed to me he was often the worst player on the team. Why he got minutes and dos Santos didn't I don't understand.
