Roberto Hilbert has had surgery on his knee in Cologne, keeping him out for Bayer Leverkusen until the end of the year at least.
The 30-year-old has a long running problem with inflamed tissue, and previous attempts to rectify the problem have failed, leading to surgery being required.
Dr Peter Schäferhoff of the Media Park Clinic performed the operation, which will require a lengthy rehab period before he can return to first team action.
Born in Forchheim, the full-back transferred to Leverkusen from Besiktas in July 2013 for a fee of £3.50million. Prior to that, he had played in Germany with Greuther Fürth and SC Feucht.
Suffering a setback
Hilbert has appeared in nine games for Bayer in all competitions this season, racking up nearly 800 minutes already.
He has started four Bundesliga matches, and has featured in four Champions League games (including qualification) as well as a DFB-Pokal game away at SF Lotte.
The season has hardly been ideal for Bayer Leverkusen anyway, as they sit outside the top six with just 13 points from 8 matches. The likes of Ingolstadt, Köln and Hertha sit above them, completely on merit.
The situation will put manager Roger Schmidt under a little bit of pressure, as the telling schedule including action packed periods of Bundesliga, Cup and Champions League football can prove too much for some players to handle.
Chance to fill in
The injury, however unfortunate, presents an opportunity for another full-back on the Bayer books.
25-year-old Italian Giulio Donati is the most likely candidate to fill this void, having started the last game, a 1-1 draw against Augsburg at the BayArena.
He too has started four matches; against Mainz, Bremen, Barcelona and Augsburg in chronological order.
Donati has won the Serie A with Inter, as well as the Coppa Italia and the Champions League as he was part of Inter's treble winning side under José Mourinho back in 2009/10.
