Winger Lee Martin has revealed that he had very serious concerns regarding his eyesight after suffering a freak injury while playing golf in late September. The former Manchester United man, who was sent to specialists at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, returned to action as a sub in the defeat to Doncaster and is in the squad for the trip to Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
Martin told the club site: "It was very serious at one stage and I was really worried. A stone flicked up from underneath the ball as I played my shot and caught my eye and cracked my lens. A few hours later I was totally blind in my right eye.
"One of my mates is a doctor and he popped down to have a look at it for me and he was surprised at the rate of the swelling and was also worried because my eye had turned totally black, not just the pupil but the whole eye.
"That was when we hit the panic buttons and they took me to the hospital, who in turn sent me to a specialist. They did a thorough check to see if there was any damage to the nerves and the retina.
"It was very worrying time but fortunately there is no lasting damage. My vision was still quite blurry for a while, which took me some time to get used to, and even now it's not properly dilated in my right eye. It was just one of those things but luckily I've managed to get over it."
Meanwhile, the Blues have confirmed that striker Tamás Priskin has returned from Hungary having been delayed by sub-zero temperatures in central Europe.