{"id":16145,"date":"2025-12-29T05:55:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T16:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=16145"},"modified":"2025-12-29T05:55:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T16:55:20","slug":"chris-wood-set-for-extended-time-out-after-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=16145","title":{"rendered":"Chris Wood set for extended time out after surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>All Whites captain Chris Wood&#8217;s spell on the sideline will continue for an indefinite period after undergoing surgery.<\/p>\n<p>The Nottingham Forest striker hasn&#8217;t played since mid-October and the recuperation from a knee injury has been unsuccessful, forcing the 34-year-old to have an operation in a bid to resolve the issue.<\/p>\n<p>It continues a forgettable season for Wood, who played only nine games before suffering the injury against Chelsea on 18 October.<\/p>\n<p>Last season he scored a club-record 20 goals for Forest, the fourth-most across the entire English Premier League for 2024-25, helping them qualify for European competition.<\/p>\n<p>The nature of Wood&#8217;s injury is unclear, nor when he underwent surgery. He has been seen wearing a knee brace while watching recent Forest matches.<\/p>\n<p>Wood provided an update from his hospital bed on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DSw_TMujIOA\/?hl=en\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Christmas I didn&#8217;t expect, you can never know what football throws at you,&#8221; Wood wrote.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;From the highs of last season to now the battles and the lows personally of this season. You have to be ready for anything.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Truly gutting and frustrating that I&#8217;ll be on the sideline for another period of time. It&#8217;s what&#8217;s needed to come back stronger and better to help my teammates do the job needed in the Premier League and in Europe.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Forest manager Sean Dyche said the operation had gone well but, couldn&#8217;t suggest a potential return date.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He has had an operation, at the end of a period of trying to settle it down,&#8221; Dyche said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is unfortunate. We had a lot of specialist opinion to try to get him through naturally. But they have decided it is time to go and do it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is a version of a cartilage op. It certainly won&#8217;t be days, obviously. We are hoping it will be weeks. We will have to wait and see how it settles. The signs were good from the surgical point of view.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t like throwing timescales about because of potential disruption on the way back to fitness. We are hoping it is a smooth pathway, but sometimes it isn&#8217;t. We will just have to wait and see.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"photo-captioned photo-captioned-full photo-cntr eight_col \"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.rnztools.nz\/rnz\/image\/upload\/s--nJGYQCEa--\/ar_16:10,c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,q_auto,w_1050\/v1728953527\/4KIB62K_241014NZLvMalaysia_144_JPG?_a=BACCd2AD\" alt=\"Chris Wood of New Zealand applauds after their 4-0 win over Malaysia.\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\"><span class=\"caption\">Chris Wood of New Zealand applauds after their 4-0 win over Malaysia.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Photo:\u00a0Andrew Cornaga\/www.photosport.nz<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The All Whites&#8217; next fixtures are two home games in late March as they prepare for the FIFA World Cup in June.<\/p>\n<p>Without Wood&#8217;s finishing touches, Forest have struggled this season, winning five of 18 games.<\/p>\n<p>Their 2-1 loss to Manchester City on Sunday morning leaves them 17th, just five league points above the relegation zone.<\/p>\n<p>rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All Whites captain Chris Wood&#8217;s spell on the sideline will continue for an indefinite period after undergoing surgery. The Nottingham Forest striker hasn&#8217;t played since mid-October and the recuperation from a knee injury has been unsuccessful, forcing the 34-year-old to have an operation in a bid to resolve the issue. It continues a forgettable season [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":16146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16147,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16145\/revisions\/16147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}