He was appointed as club captain for the 1990–91 season and was given a new five-year contract. However three games into his captaincy he picked up an injury against Aston Villa. An initial X-ray showed no broken bones and he was told it would take six weeks for the injury to heal. However, he broke down after initial straight line running work stepped up to include twisting and turning. An arthroscopy revealed a ruptured Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), and he underwent pioneering surgery to reconstruct the ligament using tissue taken from the patella tendon of the same knee; he was initially given a six-month recovery time which could have seen him back in the team at the end of that season. However, when the time again came to train with a football his knee gave way once again.