Paul Konchesky will visit a specialist to discover whether a knee complaint that first began to bother him last season will require surgery.

Roy Hodgson fears that the Fulham left back could be out for around a month, which would be a big blow with his most likely deputy Toni Kallio still getting over his Achilles injury.

It’s not a major knee problem but a slight one that may need surgical intervention, though hopefully not. Even though it’s not ligament damage because it’s on the knee it still causes aggravation and problems for him.

Last week the game against Everton and training went well, but he’s felt it a little bit this week. We’re hoping Faris Haddade will give us an indication of what we need to do to get rid of this problem or how we can continue to manage it.

We don’t want Paul to stop playing but it’s difficult if a player feels he’s not at 100%. He’s had this since the end of last season but it’s got steadily worse and we want him to play pain-free.

It could be easily solved with a simple injection but it could need surgery that might keep him out for a month. If the diagnosis is that he needs an operation we want it done straight away.

Toni Kallio is still recovering from injury but it will take time to get him up to speed and he’s the person we had up our sleeve as cover if Paul went down. But we have other full-backs at the club who I trust and believe in.

The key phrase in that last paragraph is ‘other full-backs’ suggesting that Hodgson would be most likely to play a right-sided defender at left back as he has done with Stephen Kelly in a couple of European ties already this season. Perhaps Roy feels it’s still too early to blood the likes of Joe Anderson or Matthew Briggs, who has just been called up to the England squad for the Under-20 World Cup.