Chelsea defender Sam Hutchison is struggling to overcome a knee injury on-loan at Nottingham Forest.

The Telegraph says Hutchinson is on loan at Forest and has missed almost three months of the Championship club's season due to alleged mishandling from Chelsea's medical team.

The 23 year-old, who retired in August 2010 after injury before returning 18 months later, was sent back to Chelsea in September for an injection in his left knee and told he would be back playing in a fortnight. But Hutchinson has been unavailable for 15 games and is not expected to feature in Sean O'Driscoll's plans until the end of the year.

Hutchinson said: "It has been an incredibly frustrating time for me. I went back to Chelsea and had an injection which they thought would clear up over the October international break but it has taken a lot longer.

"I know people were probably looking at my situation and thinking that I'd broken down again, that my old knee injury was playing up again but that wasn't the case.

"This lay-off wasn't caused by an injury but by an injection that was quite intrusive and although it will have long-term benefits in the short-term it has proved problematic, which is not what I needed as I was desperate to play games."