David Cuffley Norwich City defender Adam Drury has had surgery to try to finally clear up a long-running knee injury. The 30-year-old full-back made just 14 first team appearances as the Canaries suffered relegation to League One - and only 10 the previous season after sustaining knee ligament damage in a home game against Bristol City in October 2007.

David Cuffley

Norwich City defender Adam Drury has had surgery to try to finally clear up a long-running knee injury.

The 30-year-old full-back made just 14 first team appearances as the Canaries suffered relegation to League One - and only 10 the previous season after sustaining knee ligament damage in a home game against Bristol City in October 2007.

Manager Bryan Gunn said he hoped the latest repair work would finally put an end to Drury's injury misery.

“Adam Drury is away to have a minor operation on his knee to tidy that up and make sure he's right for the beginning of the season,” said Gunn yesterday.

“It's been very frustrating for Adam. He has shown great spirit and determination in coming back from a very bad injury. What went against Adam was the fact that we didn't have any structure of games for him to build up some fitness.

“At the start of the season he was travelling in the squads, maybe sitting on the bench or in the stand, so he wasn't building up any real fitness.

“The lack of games hasn't helped him and then, when there was an opportunity for him to come in, it was very difficult for him to maintain the Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday fixture programme we had.

“I hope with this final tidy-up of the problem, he will be able to work during the summer, build his fitness up in pre-season training and games and be available for selection on August 8.”

Drury appeared just twice in the last 14 matches of the season. He substituted after less than an hour of the 2-1 defeat at Swansea, then made a late appearance as a substitute in the 2-0 Easter Monday home win over Watford.

He might have figured in last Sunday's final game at Charlton but for a training injury the day before.

Said Gunn: “On Saturday, in the last five minutes of our training session, Ryan Bertrand pulled his groin and Adam took a knock on his knee.

“It was a fresh knock. He trained for the majority of the day and then right at the end there was a collision and it was too painful for him to be considered the next day. It was a bit of a freak five minutes at the end of training when two left-backs went down.”

Goalkeeper Stuart Nelson, who is out of contract in the summer, has also had an operation to clear up an ankle problem and is back at Colney for rehabilitation.

“Stuart had some floating bone in his ankle and some scar tissue which has been tidied up,” said Gunn. “He has started his rehab so he'll be working with Simon Spencer and Mark Garfoot and those guys recovering from long-term injuries - Carl Cort, Dejan Stefanovic and Wes Hoolahan. They're the ones that are in there training.”

Gunn said the progress of Stefanovic and Hoolahan was “very positive”.

He said: “They will certainly both be available for the first day of training. Wes could possibly have joined in training this week but now we're in a rest period and he will continue to do rehab work, fitness work and turn up on the first day of training with the rest of the squad.

“Dejan has been very focused in his rehab and he's looking to try to prove himself from the beginning of pre-season training.”

Gunn admitted that the absence of Hoolahan for the final seven Championship games had been a major blow.

“He's that type of player, Wes, a special player. Certainly in our home matches he's performed to a very high level and some of those last matches were the type of game Wes can bring to life with that special talent he has. He was a big miss. We probably don't realise how much until now.”