Ziege fears lengthy absence after injury jinx strikes

Christian Ziege admitted today that he was "very down" about the knee injury that forced him off in his Tottenham comeback after a nightmare 10 months of injury problems.

The German, who had battled back from a career-threatening thigh injury, was taken off after 61 minutes in last night's win over West Ham and was today having scans on his knee.

Ziege, capped 71 times for his country, almost had his left leg amputated when a dead-leg injury in the Boxing Day clash against Charlton caused his thigh to double in size. He had undergone a series of operations on his thigh.

Ziege fears he could now be out for weeks with a medial ligament damage to the same leg. He said: "It is my left knee and it is not good. I will know more later today but I am very down."

Tottenham won with a goal from Bobby Zamora and his team-mate Ledley King, who played alongside the former Brighton striker for East London youth team Senrab, said: "I am really pleased for Bobby.

"At the end of the 90 minutes I told him to keep going and his chance would come. We played at Senrab and he had a great scoring record as a young kid.

"It was always going to be tough for him coming to the Premiership from the lower leagues.

"Now that he has got his first goal he will be hard to stop. His record with Brighton speaks for itself and people probably expected him to come here and start scoring straight away, but it doesn't always work like that."

Meanwhile, Spurs are likely to escape action from the Football Association following violence between fans before last night's third-round tie.

Three pubs were wrecked and police made more than 80 arrests.

However, because the incidents happened away from the ground, Spurs are unlikely to face any sanctions.