COLIN Hendry made a shock return home last night from Blackburn Rovers' pre-season Scandinavian tour to have an ankle injury checked out by specialists.

But Rovers boss Roy Hodgson has not yet given up hope of the central defender making the start of the new Premiership season.

Hendry made a surprise appearance in the second half against IFK Gothenburg on Saturday following a quicker than expected recovery from his summer groin operation.

It was originally thought he would only be going to Sweden and Denmark for training.

But, with other injury problems, he and Stephane Henchoz, who has had a slight groin strain, were given the go-ahead to play.

While the Scotsman's groin does not seem to have caused any problems, a long-standing ankle injury brought about the decision to send him home in order to have it properly diagnosed and treated as soon as possible.

"Hopefully he will see a specialist tomorrow to look into the injury which has been causing him problems for some time," said Hodgson today. "After the operation he had it was hoped that with the rest it would go away. But he still feels it.

"It is not 100 per cent right. A scan shows that it's getting better, but he could still feel it in training and was in pain yesterday.

"I am anxious that Colin can start the season fully fit.

"We had a long talk about it and we decided the best thing was for him to go back and see the specialist.

"He himself is fairly confident that it is not a big job and that he will still be fit for the start of the season. There's no point in him going into the start not fully fit."

Hodgson decided to give both Hendry and Henchoz a run-out on Saturday because of other injury problems even though neither are anywhere near match fitness. Overall the manager was not unhappy about how Rovers performed on Saturday, especially in the first half.

"I thought the team did very well to hold a side as strong as Gothenburg to 1-0 and had we gone into the second half in front I don't think that Mats Jingblad (IFK boss) could have complained," he said. "But, on the second half performance, I thought that Gothenburg deserved their victory.

"In the five or 10 minutes the new team took to become accustomed to the field and Gothenburg's style of play, they created two very good chances and took one of them. That cost us the game.

"The new signings did quite well and we have taken this game for exactly what it was, a friendly match, a step along the way in our preparations."

Rovers new striker Martin Dahlin is unlikely to feature tomorrow night when Rovers play a mini-tournament against Norrkoping and Dundee Utd even if international clearance comes through. Hodgson explained that Rovers were not able to apply for international clearance until they had paid Dahlin's club Roma the transfer fee and that could not be done until all aspects of the player's move had been completed.

He said it had nothing to do with any insurance mix-up.

The club are still waiting for international clearance but Hodgson said: "He has only had a couple of days training and we have to make sure he gets himself fit first. We are playing top class Scandinavian teams and it's not a time to put a player into those kind of games too early."

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