Jamie Vardy will return to training in seven to 10 days after undergoing his hernia operation.
The Leicester City striker had minor surgery on a long-standing issue on Saturday, with City choosing for their talisman to miss a small period of games to protect his long-term fitness.
And after originally saying Vardy would miss “a few weeks”, he could now be back on the training pitch at Seagrave a week from now, perhaps with a view to him returning against Wolves in a fortnight’s time, or perhaps the FA Cup fifth-round tie at home to Brighton a few days later.
That clash was set up after City coped without Vardy at Brentford on Sunday, Cengiz Under, Youri Tielemans, and James Maddison scoring to turn around the match in the second half.
On Vardy’s injury, manager Brendan Rodgers said in his post-match press conference: “He had the operation yesterday (Saturday). Jamie was supposed to have this operation before the last round, when we played against Stoke but unfortunately the surgeon wasn’t able to do the surgery then, so we had to put it back a few weeks. He had it yesterday.
The reason for doing it was because we felt it would be a week to 10 days maximum before he was back on the pitch, and then probably another few days before he would be available. That was the two-week timeline we looked at.
“He won’t lose too much fitness. It’s only a minor operation. We can cope without him at this point, and then he will be fit and raring to go for the remainder of the season.”
If Vardy does return by Wolves, he will miss three fixtures, against Everton, Leeds, and Fulham.
It is likely to be between Ayoze Perez and Kelechi Iheanacho to take his place, with Perez starting against Brentford.