DESPONDENT Cherries star Neil Young has admitted that he does not expect to play again this season after an operation on his injured left knee was cancelled on Monday.

Young had initially expected to be out of action until Christmas after being told by top knee specialist John King that he would need an operation to remove fluid surrounding the joint in mid-October.

However, the past month has proved enormously frustrating for the 27-year-old defender as his surgery has been re-arranged twice due to various complications.

During the first exploratory operation on October 31, the surgeon nipped a blood vessel causing Young to lose a litre of blood.

As a result, the former Spurs man had to wait four weeks before the results of a blood test gave surgeon Mr Otto Chan the green light to operate.

But, after Mr Chan was unavailable to carry out the necessary treatment on Monday, Young conceded that his season was already over.

Young said: "I went up to London on Monday but Mr Chan was on holiday so they couldn't perform the surgery. It was never guaranteed they would do the surgery on that day anyway.

"While I was there, I had another scan to see if the swelling around my knee had gone down and because it has, I now have to wait for a letter from the hospital to say when I can have the surgery.

"It's very frustrating because the first time they tried to operate, I bled too much, the second time there was too much swelling to drill and now, when they could have done it, Mr Chan was away.

"To be honest, I don't expect to play again this season. I don't even have any idea when I'll be able to return to training.

"The specialists have told me that to get back to full fitness will take two months after the injury itself has healed. And I don't even know when the operation is yet.

"I have also lost a lot of muscle in my left leg where I have not been training. You can actually see that my left thigh is smaller than my right thigh. So that is going to take time to build up again. Another specialist is going to look at my MRI scans next week so that we can get a second opinion. Obviously, if he says something different to the other specialists, I could be back at square one.

"The stupid thing is because the whole process has taken so long, the injury's gradually getting better on it's own. The knee's feeling a lot easier since the swelling went down.

"Once I get the letter from the hospital, I'll have a better idea of how long my recovery's going to be. To play again before the end of the season would be a big bonus but I can't see it happening."

Young sustained the troublesome medial knee ligament damage during the second week of pre-season training back in July but managed to play through the pain barrier for the first 11 games of this campaign.