Birmingham City Football Club News

• Nickname:Blues
• Founded:1875
• Manager:Chris Hughton

• Ground:St Andrew's
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Jerome opts for surgery

13 Nov 2007 - 10:07:30

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Birmingham City striker Cameron Jerome faces a race to be fit in time to feature in the Blues' next Premier League game against Portsmouth later this month as he needs to have surgery on a hernia problem.

The 21-year-old has withdrawn from the England Under-21 squad in order to have the operation.

"I'm going to get my groins done, both sides, and hopefully that will sort it," Jerome told the Birmingham Evening Mail. "It's been giving me trouble since pre-season really.

"I've just been getting on with it and maintaining it, having lots of massages and taking anti-inflammatory tablets. It's not gone away so we've got to try and get to the root of it.

"It's the international break now so hopefully I'll have a decent chance of being available when we play again."

Meanwhile, Medhi Nafti is relieved to have discovered that he did not break his leg in Sunday's derby defeat to Aston Villa.

"I think it was just a big, big, big kick," he said. "The pain was unbelievable. I went for the ball and slipped. I think two players both stamped on my leg - two players.

"I thought at that moment that it had been broken."

However, the injury is not as bad as was initially feared and Nafti has flown to Tunisia to report for international duty with his country.