Cherries midfielder Mark Molesley is to have an operation after failing to respond to treatment.  Mark is going in for the operation on Thursday 21 January and if all goes well, he hasn't ruled out the possibility of playing again this season.

Physio Steve Hard said, "When we had his scan results in December, there was no real change from the results from six weeks before.  We tried some exercises on it, but he still had a bit of discomfort so we sought a second and a third opinion.  Both orthopaedic surgeons that we saw came to the same conclusion that they would rather have a look inside the ankle joint and give it a clean out.  They both said that it could give it a chance to improve the symptoms that Mark is getting and then he may not need the op that would keep him out for the season.  It's not guaranteed to be a cure, but both surgeons seem to be quite optimistic that this could help.  They have given us a time frame of six weeks until Mark can start training, but we will have to gauge how he feels post operation."

Mark Molesley added, "I'm gutted because we tried anything and everything to try and avoid having an operation.  We've exhausted every avenue we can go down now, so I'll have to bite the bullet and have the operation.  There might be a glimmer of hope that it might not be such a big operation and if that's the case, I have an outside chance that I might be able to play again this season.  It's not a common injury, so we have had to try different treatments which have unfortunately not worked.  That was always the risk and there was no guarantee that any of them would work.  They were gambles at the time that we had to take."