• O’Hara has two fractures of the lower spine
• Midfielder still hopes to play for Portsmouth at Wembley

Jamie O’Hara has a big decision to make as a stress fracture in his back threatens to rule him out of Portsmouth’s FA Cup final date with Chelsea at Wembley on Saturday.

The on-loan Tottenham Hotspur midfielder, who was ineligible for the semi-final win over his parent club, needed a painkilling injection to take part in the Premier League loss at Everton yesterday.

The 23-year-old, however, does not want to risk either the team’s chances or his own long-term health.

“I have got two fractures on the lower part of my spine and if it was any other time of the season, it is eight weeks out,” he said. “After this I will be out for a couple of months, and then it will just be rest because it is a stress fracture.

“We have had a scan already, and Spurs are looking towards a longer-term injury. Speaking to the doctors, it can be a serious one if you keep playing on it, and you could be looking at a year out.

“I have got to be careful what I do, but with the injections, the doctors said one more game would not be a problem.

“I would love to play, but it has come to the point now where I am really struggling and can’t do anything, which is the most frustrating thing. I can get around, but it is not how you want to be going into a Cup final.”

O’Hara added: “I have been speaking to Spurs and they are not wanting to stop me in any way, but are looking at it longer-term going back. I am going to miss some of pre-season, and will be trying to get myself right for the start.”

O’Hara collected a clean sweep of Portsmouth’s player of the season awards but does not want to see his last appearance made for all the wrong reasons.

“I have had a great season, winning all those awards, and I would not want to go into such a massive game for the club half-fit,” he said. “On a personal basis, it is great playing at Wembley and would be an occasion, but I don’t want to kill myself long-term. The final decision will be mine with the manager. We will have to sit down at the end of the week and decide what we want to do.”

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• ‘To have sacked staff here with us … it’s very humbling’
• Harry Redknapp bemoans Wembley pitch and referee

Avram Grant savoured the latest startling chapter of this season’s Portsmouth story, which he said could be turned into a best-seller, after watching his team shock Tottenham Hotspur with a 2-0 extra-time win to set up an FA Cup final date with his former club Chelsea.

It has been a tumultuous nine months for the club, in which they have suffered financial meltdown, administration and relegation from the Premier League. Grant will face selection problems for the final on 15 May, as a host of his players could be unavailable because of performance-related contractual issues. The club, meanwhile, will not qualify for the Europa League because, such is their parlous financial state, they did not apply for a licence.

But Grant wanted to put all the mayhem behind him for one day and enjoy what he said was one of the most stunning upsets of his long career. It has been quite a journey for Portsmouth from the third round of the competition, when an injury-time equaliser in the replay at Coventry City kept them alive and a 120th-minute winner carried them through. And when full-time sounded here, Grant celebrated as he famously did after guiding Chelsea past Liverpool in the 2008 Champions League semi-final.

“To see the fans and players so happy – for these moments, you work all your life,” he said. “To see the members of staff who have been sacked in the dressing-room with us afterwards, people who the players have given their money for them to be with us, it’s very humbling.

“We could write a book about the things that went against us this season. Can they take anything else from us? Points? Administration? Anything else? I don’t think any of you will have to go through what we have, to come to work not knowing what would happen next. On 7 February, my staff arrived saying there might not be a club.

“Not many people expected us to get to the final,” he said. “A team at the bottom of the table to win against a team like Tottenham: if I was a neutral, I’d have felt the same. If someone upstairs wanted all this, I’d say he’s crazy. But we had the belief and the courage to come and win. Every day since I’ve been here, I’ve had to answer questions about things off the pitch; contracts, points deducted, administration. For one day, I want to speak only about football. Tomorrow, we will see what happens with the contracts. We’re more than happy today.”

The occasion was even more emotional for Grant as it fell on the Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Israeli wore an armband to commemorate Yom Hashoah and he will travel to Poland today to pay his respects, as he did after taking Chelsea to the Champions League final.

“This is the second time it’s happened, getting to a final [at this time of the year] so it’s more than symbolic,” Grant said. “My father died in October and I lost members of my family [in the Holocaust]. My father was the most optimistic guy I have ever met. He came into life with a smile and departed in his sleep with a smile. This result is for him.”

Harry Redknapp, the Tottenham manager, admitted that the day had been a “big low” when everything that could have gone wrong, did so, from Peter Crouch doing everything but score to Wilson Palacios’s late booking, which will see him suspended for the club’s next two matches against Arsenal and Chelsea. Niko Kranjcar, Redknapp reported, suffered what looked like a serious ankle injury.

Redknapp gave “full credit” to Portsmouth, his former club, but he reserved his ire for the Wembley pitch and the referee Alan Wiley, who ruled out what would have been an extra-time equaliser from Crouch for an earlier infringement by Kranjcar. Portsmouth’s opening goal had resulted from a slip on the suspect Wembley surface by Michael Dawson.

“The pitch is a disgrace,” said Redknapp. “For any professional team to play on that is farcical. How can you play football on a pitch you can’t stand up on? It’s like a skating rink. It looked a good goal [for Crouch] but that’s the way it goes. I don’t know why it was disallowed. If you see David James’s face, he looked round as if to say: ‘How did I get away with that?’”

Avram GrantHarry RedknappFA CupPortsmouthTottenham HotspurDavid Hytnerguardian.co.uk