West Brom's Martin Kelly ruled out for season with knee injury at Wigan
Martin Kelly will miss the remainder of the season with a knee injury sustained on his debut for loan club Wigan.
The Albion defender sealed a temporary switch to the DW Stadium late in last month's transfer window and caught the eye in an excellent bow for the Latics against Blackburn before hobbling off late on.
Baggies boss Carlos Corberan confirmed the experienced stopper, 32, is set to go under the knife and the Spaniard's Wigan counterpart Shaun Maloney confirmed Kelly will not play again this season.
"Martin has had a scan and sadly it’s a serious knee injury," said Maloney.
“He’s going to go see the specialist and have his surgery in the near future, but sadly it’s season-ending for him unfortunately. However, Martin will be as close to the group as possible for the rest of the season.
“He’s been everything I’d hoped for when arriving – a real leader in his own style and you saw against Blackburn what he can do on the pitch. It’s a big loss but we’ll still need him in these next few months."
Corberan admitted Albion's dressing room has felt for Kelly this week having seen the defender limp off with the worrying blow. Kelly, who was awarded man of the match, tweeted immediately after the game he felt like a 'broken man'.
"Unfortunately he suffered the other day," Corberan said this afternoon. "He was doing an excellent game and in the last minutes of the game he suffered an injury in the knee which took him off the pitch for a long period of time. It's a pity for him, we feel pain for this.
"All of his teammates here have been talking about it, because he has the love of the dressing room from when he was here with us. We moved him so that he could get the minutes, and it's a pity that in the first game he played there, had an excellent game but had an injury. It's another difficult part of football.
"Now, he needs to be focused on his recovery. First he will have surgery, and then we will see how we manage it."
