Liverpool's Djibril Cisse will have to wait at least two months to learn how long he will be out of the game, according to a leading physiotherapist.
Cisse underwent surgery on Sunday after breaking his leg against Blackburn.
"Liverpool now face a big waiting game to see if the bones have healed," Daryl Martin, a physio with the English Institute of Sport, told BBC Sport.
"You hope that they will heal in six to eight weeks, but this type of surgery is notorious for taking much longer."
Martin, who used to work for Fulham and is currently dealing with a professional footballer suffering with an identical injury, added: "It could take six to nine months and the absolute worst-case scenario is 18 months, but on average it would be three or four months.
"He won't be able to start his rehab until the bone shows some signs of healing."
Cisse suffered a comminuted fracture of the tibia and fracture of the fibula after an innocuous-looking challenge from Blackburn's Jay McEveley on Saturday.
"It did look like a fairly harmless incident and it's unusual for it to result in such a bad injury," said Martin.
"But as to why some tackles end up this way - that's the million-dollar question that no-one can answer.
"It just comes down to bad luck. Cisse has probably experienced tackles like that 100 times before without a problem, but on this occasion his leg could simply not cope with the amount of force."
The 23-year-old, who arrived for £14m in the summer from Auxerre, had pins inserted in his leg in an operation on Sunday.
"A comminuted fracture usually infers that the bone has been broken into more than two pieces," explained Martin.
"If the two ends of a broken bone are in line with each other then you can just put someone in plaster and the two bones will heal together very quickly.
"But I can only assume that, because he had metal inserted in his leg, the ends of his bone are quite far from each other or even overlapping."
Liverpool have said Cisse will be out of action for the rest of the season, but Martin claims that an end-of-season return is not out of the question for the Frenchman.
"If everything goes to plan then five months out is not an unrealistic target," he added.
"But if the bones don't start to heal properly then it could potentially be this time next year. And unfortunately there is a chance that it's a career-ending injury.
"Nine times out of 10 players come back without any long-term problem, but unfortunately there is a minority of cases where that doesn't happen.
"He's going to have to work very hard before he can get back on a football pitch."