Notts Forest’s Andy Reid undergoes surgery on a groin problem

Andy Reid's injury-blighted season has taken another turn for the worst with Stuart Pearce revealing that the 32-year-old midfielder has had surgery on the groin problem that has kept him sidelined since September.

The injury is expected to keep him out now for another four to six weeks.

Reid started the season strongly and would, had he maintained the form he showed over six English League Championship appearances, have been firmly in contention for a couple of Martin O’Neill’s Republic of Ireland squad.

But he has struggled since picking up the original problem in a 1-1 draw with Derby County and Forest would appear to have missed him with their early season form dipping badly since.

“We’ve got him to a level of 85 to 90 per cent fitness,” said Pearce of the Dubliner yesterday, “but he’s still suffering slight pain when pushing on to the next level.

“We saw three or four specialists last week to get varying opinions and we think some minor surgery is needed. That’ll happen this afternoon and the timescale we’ve been given is four-to-six weeks. Now he’s got that clarity of knowing it can be solved surgically, he can move on from there.”

A move

Pearce, meanwhile, has been linked with a move to bring Aston Villa midfielder

Jack Grealish

in on loan but the manager was reluctant to comment.

The player, whose international future remains uncertain, tweeted on Monday that he “can’t wait to be happy playing football again”.

Former Republic of Ireland goalkeeper Paddy Kenny has joined Mick McCarthy's promotion-chasing Ipswich Town as cover for Bartosz Bialkowski on a four month contract.

Kenny, who becomes the sixth Irish member of the club’s first team squad, arrives from Bolton Wanderers having not played competitively since just before Christmas when a loan spell at Oldham Athletic finished poorly with 11 goals conceded in his final two games.

McCarthy nevertheless values his experience and the manager apologised to 19-year-old Michael Crow who has been on the bench in recent weeks, saying that the stakes had effectively become too high to take a chance on the teenager.

Leon Best will try to recover some of the momentum he has lost in recent years at Brighton over the remainder of the season with recently appointed manager Chris Hughton taking a chance on the 28-year-old striker as he looks to preserve the club's Championship status for next season.

Best, who could make his debut against Ipswich this evening, joined Blackburn from Newcastle for around €3.6 million in July 2012 but suffered serious injury setbacks and scored two goals in 16 games. He has had loan spells at Sheffield Wednesday and Derby.