Ledley King's World Cup hopes have suffered a major blow with Tottenham revealing he has fractured the fourth metatarsal of his left foot.
King suffered the injury during Spurs' 1-0 Easter Saturday win over Everton at Goodison Park.
The Spurs website tottenhamhotspur.com said: "Ledley King has suffered a stress fracture to the fourth metatarsal of his left foot. Early indications are that his recovery will take three to four weeks."
England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson is due to name his World Cup squad on May 8th and must submit it to FIFA by May 15th, leaving the Spurs skipper with a race against time to be fit.
Eriksson already had injury problems in defence to contend with before King's untimely setback.
Real Madrid centre-back Jonathan Woodgate is currently sidelined, Sol Campbell has suffered a broken nose and Matthew Upson suffered a ruptured Achilles during the warm-up before Birmingham's derby clash with Aston Villa and is ruled out for the rest of the season.
Eriksson will now be keeping his fingers crossed that there are no injury problems between now and the World Cup for John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Jamie Carragher and Wes Brown.
