Stelios Joins Treatment Room

By Mark Heys
July 30 2007

Veteran midfielder Stelios Giannakopoulos will miss the start of the Premiership season after having a successful operation on a long standing hernia problem earlier on this summer.

The Greek international is likely to miss up to a month of action thus ruling him out of the season opener against Newcastle United in just under a fortnight from now.

Professor Konstantinidis performed the operation at the Athens Medical Centre and Bolton's head of sports science Dr Richard Freeman said the procedure was a success.

Stelios has had a successful operation on a sportsman hernia on his left side. The problem has been building up for around two years, but we had to get things moving to help the player overcome the discomfort. It has been resolved now and Stelios will feel better for it." said Freeman

Giannakopoulos has made over 150 appearances for Bolton since signing from Olympiakos four summers ago and was the overall top goalscorer for the club two seasons ago.