McAteer faces six week lay-off

McAteer had to pull-out of the Republic of Ireland squad for their Euro 2004 qualifier with Switzerland on Wednesday night because of the injury and was hoping to avoid having the operation.

However, his attempts to shrug off the injury in training have failed and further tests revealed a hernia problem.

McAteer now faces the same length of time out as Sunderland's other hernia operation casualty Kevin Phillips.

Phillips has been sidelined for the last six weeks and McAteer is looking at probably the same length of time.




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