Soccer: Steve Carr's agent last night played down a suggestion from Graeme Souness that the Newcastle United right back is set to miss the rest of the season because of surgery on a knee injury, a lay-off that would keep him out of both of the Republic of Ireland's World Cup games against Israel as well as the visit in June to the Faroe Islands.

Souness told a press conference at St James' Park last Friday: "I don't believe it is career threatening but my feeling is that we will need to operate on Stephen and it is a serious enough operation to keep him out of action for the rest of the season. Hopefully we can get him back on the pitch in August."

Commenting on the situation yesterday, however, Carr's agent Robert Segall said Carr hopes to avoid surgery at this point and believes he is close to the point in his rehabilitation where he can begin running again.

"We feel that he's almost at that point and if that's the case and all goes well then we certainly wouldn't see the need for an operation," he said. "All I can say at this point really is that I hope Graeme Souness is wrong about the seriousness of the situation and that would certainly be our belief for the moment."

Carr picked up the injury, which is unrelated to previous knee problems encountered by the Dubliner, in November when he limped out of his club's 3-1 home defeat by Manchester United. If he does require surgery it would mean returning to the United States where he has previously received treatment from Dr Richard Steadman.

He would then, as Souness suggests, be out until next season and miss Ireland's three World Cup qualifying games. Segall, however, insists that a return to competitive action is definitely on the cards before the end of the season and he could feature in June's games against Israel and the Faroe Islands.

"Absolutely," he said. "If it wasn't going to be before then, we might as well just let him go ahead and have the operation. The aim is to get him back playing as soon as possible. Who knows when that will be at this point, we just have to wait and see, but the hope certainly is that it will be this side of the summer."

There was continuing uncertainty, meanwhile, over the future of Andy O'Brien with the Irish international defender scoring an own goal when lining out for Newcastle's reserve team in 3-3 draw at West Brom last night.

Aston Villa are reported to have maintained their interest in the 25-year-old and Souness is believed to be prepared to allow him to leave in the event he succeeds in signing another central defender. But the Newcastle manager is said to have been unimpressed with Bayern Munich centre back Sammy Kuffour's performance in a game on Sunday.