Southampton eye loan defender

Last updated : 10 September 2007 By Daniel Elwes
The 34-year-old Norwegian has been told he needs surgery to repair his injured ankle tendon and the Saints boss is already planning to bring in a replacement when the emergency loan window opens later this week.

"It's a major blow losing Claus for so long," Burley said.

"We'd been hopeful he'd only need a minor operation and that it was just a case of tidying the tendon.

"But unfortunately when the surgeon went in, he found it was a much more major problem.

"We'll step up our search for another centre-back. We've been working hard trying to get someone in and hopefully we can sort something out.

"We're looking to strengthen in that area and if we can bring in a loan player then that would be great."