Wayne Hennessey faces long spell out

Wolves today suffered a major blow after keeper Wayne Hennessey was ruled out for up to nine months with a torn cruciate knee ligament.

The Wales international was sent for a scan yesterday after feeling a problem in his knee towards the end of Saturday's goalless draw at Sunderland.

The scan is said to reveal a slight tear and not a major tear of the cruciate ligament, which probably explains why the keeper played on at the time.

Hennessey is due to undergo further assessment on the injury and, until he meets with a surgeon in London, the club are not even confirming the nature of his injury.

Wolves head of medical Steve Kemp said today: "We'll be discussing the findings of the scan when we meet with the knee specialist in London and we'll know more in due course."

But Hennessey, who has reeled off 58 consecutive Premier League appearances for the club, is set to be out of action for a while, which have almost certainly ended his hopes of playing for Great Britain at the London Olympics this summer.

The 25-year-old became the second Wolves player to suffer such an injury after Emmanuel Frimpong was ruled out with a similar problem in the QPR game on February 4.

Boss Terry Connor said: "He just felt his knee during the game. He went to catch a ball right at the end and didn't think too much of it.

"But he felt slightly worse on Sunday so the medical guys wanted him to have a scan."

With Hennessey, who made his 150th League appearance for Wolves at Stoke 10 days ago, missing the rest of the season, summer signing Dorus De Vries, who has only had one reserve outing this year, is primed for a top-flight debut in Sunday's do-or-die clash against Manchester City before a trip to his previous club Swansea the following week.

On a lesser scale, left-back Stephen Ward is ill, although he is set to be fit for the City game.

"He's feeling generally under the weather," said Connor.

See also:

• Kevin Foley knows his place at Wolves

• Wolves put faith in youngsters