The doctors will not be able to properly assess how long Alan Smith will be sidelined until the swelling and bruising to his battered ankle subsides. He could be in plaster for up to six months and only then can the rehabilitation work will start. Dislocating his ankle will have strained and possibly damaged his ligaments which will slow the recovery process further.
Smith's agent Alex Black was quick to play down the wild claims that his boy would never play again.
Black told Sky Sports News: "Certainly from what Alan has been told we're not under the impression that it's at all career-threatening. It will be a long process to come back but if anybody is going to come back from it, it'll be Alan.
"He is tough, not just physically but mentally as well, so he has already started to talk about how quickly he can come back and get himself going again.
"As soon as Alan stays down for any injury, you know it is something quite serious.
"As they called everybody over you feared the worst and when you see the pictures it confirms it a little bit.
"He managed to stay in control of himself despite what must have been excruciating pain. What appears to have happened is when he dislocated his ankle, the force of that actually broke his leg just above his ankle as well.
"We're hopeful that the pictures look a lot worse than (the injury) actually is. The two injuries individually are both serious but they're not major, major injuries and can be treated in a relatively straightforward way, but the two together make it a long healing process for him."
The player himself remains optimistic too:
"I felt my leg go from under me as I went to block a free-kick," Smith told The Sun.
"When I looked down, the leg was laying one way and my ankle was pointing towards