MILLIONS of television viewers watched in shock at the weekend as Liverpool's Djibril Cisse suffered a horrific leg injury.

The striker fell in agony after breaking the tibia and fibia in his left leg in a seemingly innocuous challenge with Blackburn's Jay McEveley during the 2-2 draw at Ewood Park on Saturday.

Cisse, a £14million record summer signing from Auxerre, has since undergone surgery and has been ruled out for the rest of the season.

But for Evesham United manager Dave Busst, the pictures brought back only too real memories of the injury that ended his top-flight career eight and-a-half years ago.

Busst, then aged 28, fractured his right leg just 70 seconds into his Coventry City side's match at Manchester United.

The game was stopped for nine minutes as the defender was carried off, while players, including United goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel, turned away visibly horrified at the sight.

Those scenes were replayed in Busst's mind as he watched the Cisse incident.

He said: "You could see straight away he had broken his leg. The way he hit the floor you saw his leg had broken. Naturally it would bring a few memories back. I felt sorry for him, it was an innocuous challenge."

Busst, who celebrates one year with the Robins on Saturday, has endured a mammoth 21 operations since his injury in April 1996.

He said there are similarities between his and Cisse's injuries, but said there could be one thing in the Frenchman's favour.

"I saw a picture and it looked like a similar injury to mine," added Busst. "If it didn't break the skin then that's a good point, otherwise it can get infected."

Another player to suffer a similar fate was Barcelona and former Celtic striker Henrik Larsson. The Swede broke his left leg during a UEFA Cup match against Lyon in 1999 but amazingly was back in a football shirt just 12 months later.

And that, according to Busst, is something Cisse can take heart from.

He said: "The one thing I would say is just to take faith from Henrik Larsson. He had a similar break but the skin didn't break and he was back playing in a year. Hopefully it looks a lot worse than it was."