Midfielder Tom Adeyemi is facing further time on the sidelines with the achilles injury he suffered in pre-season now requiring surgery. Better news is that Emyr Huws, Teddy Bishop and Ellis Harrison are all making progress.
The 26-year-old made only four starts and one sub appearance last season after joining the Blues in the summer of 2017, illness having initially kept him out of action in pre-season before a recurrent hamstring injury ended his campaign in October.
Having recovered from that injury, he started pre-season only to suffer the problem which now needs to go under the knife.
"Tom’s having an operation on his achilles,” manager Paul Hurst revealed. "He went to see a specialist because there’s seemingly been no real improvement, despite the timeframe.
"He felt that was possibly the best course of action, which for his sake I hope it is because there’s no doubt having an operation on an achilles tendon is not something you want to really go through if possible.”
Hurst says it’s frustrating for Adeyemi but also everyone else at the club: "I’ll be honest, I’m not exactly sure what the timeframe is for it, but I think you’re talking a couple of months minimum. It will certainly be the other side of Christmas I would have thought, best case.
"It’s frustrating for everyone, he’s sort of a player that’s in the squad but in a lot of ways hasn’t been in the squad whether under myself or in the squad last season, so it’s not good for Tom at all.”
More positively, Emyr Huws and Teddy Bishop are both back out on the grass. Huws recently suffered a setback in his return from the knee injury which ended his 2017/18 prematurely, while Bishop picked up a minor hamstring problem in the U23s prior to the international break.
"Bish and Ems are back out with [physio] Chris Skitt on the training pitches doing bits of work I think with an idea of hopefully getting back involved next week at some point, although we’ve got games so how that will fit in we’ll see,” Hurst said.
Ellis Harrison, who suffered a ruptured a ligament in his ankle in the final week of September, is also making progress.
"I think six weeks from him doing it was the estimated time and we’re on course for that as I understand it,” Hurst said.
"He had his boot off yesterday, he’s had a walk round the training ground. I know that doesn’t sound that inspirational but it’s progress and speaking to him, he’s a bubbly character, he desperately wants to get back out there.”