Not again.

Leicester have confirmed that centre Manu Tuilagi faces a spell of around 12 weeks on the sidelines after suffering a “freak” knee strain in Sunday’s Aviva Premiership opener with Bath.

The England centre strained the meniscus in his left knee during the match.

He will have surgery and recovery time is estimated at 12 weeks, although Matt O’Connor stressed that the injury was not related to the ACL tear that Tuilagi suffered against Saracens last January.

“This is not the knee that Manu injured last season and this is not a major injury in the context of what kept him out for the first half of this year,” said Tigers head coach O’Connor.

“Manu has worked really hard with the medical and conditioning teams to come back from long-term injury and was starting to find his feet again on the pitch, but he’s just been very unlucky with this one.

“It was an innocuous bump, a freak incident in the game. On closer inspection there is some damage to the meniscus which needs to be addressed. We look forward to having him back at the end of his recovery period.”