Mousa Dembele may face surgery © PA Photos Enlarge

Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas hopes that the hip injury sustained by Mousa Dembele is not as bad as expected, but fears he could be out until Christmas.

Dembele is facing up to six weeks on the sidelines should he require surgery, with the Belgian having already missed the last four games after sustaining the problem on international duty.

The injury has been an ongoing concern for Dembele since his time at Fulham and initial scans on the area failed to detect whether he had aggravated it over recent weeks, but Villas-Boas remains confident.

"We want to avoid surgery if we can," Villas-Boas said. "If there happens to be surgery I think we are looking for one month, one month and a half. Hopefully that will not happen because we have some good indications the player will be back in one week or two weeks.

"It's a pain that goes away or happened to go away when he was at Fulham for two or three days and the pain went away but it is still there. He can't move himself properly so he will have a deeper scan on the injury so we can assess it properly."

Although Tottenham have moved up to fourth in the Premier League despite Dembele's absence, Villas-Boas will be hoping for a quick return with Spurs facing a tough run of matches following Saturday's home game against Wigan.

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