Blues forward Sone Aluko is facing surgery on the knee injury he suffered during Tuesday’s 6-0 defeat of Northampton in the Papa Johns Trophy, while it’s hoped Conor Chaplin will return to training today but new signing Panutche Camara won’t be involved at Accrington tomorrow.
"Aluko was subbed just before half-time against the Cobblers having fallen awkwardly and hobbled to the tunnel with the help of two members of the club's medical staff.
It hadn’t looked good and manager Kieran McKenna says those fears have been confirmed.
"It’s a fairly significant injury, so that’s very disappointing for Sone and certainly for us as a group as well,” he said.
"He saw a specialist last night, it will require surgery. The time period obviously depends on the recovery but it’s likely to be a few months.
"That’s a disappointment for Sone, we’ll certainly miss him on the pitch. Disappointing for the group to miss him on the pitch but we also know the character that he is that he’s still going to be a positive influence and a role model around the training ground.
"It was knee and some link into his hamstring as well, so he’s hopefully going to have a repair in the early part of next week and we obviously wish him all the best for a full recovery, which I’m sure he will do. He’s a very strong and fit man.”
McKenna says the injury didn’t have any impact on his deadline day business with the signings of Camara and Gassan Ahadme already planned.
"It didn’t have a bearing anything on deadline day, they were two deals that we had lined-up and were always keen to move with on the last day,” he said.
"But, it shows the reason you need a deep squad because at any given movement you can pick up an innocuous injury in a game, you don’t know when it’s going to happen.
"That’s why it’s important to have that cover and have that depth and have that balance in terms of ideally having two really strong players across each position who can compete and step into the team when required.”
Regarding Chaplin, who was withdrawn from the 18 on Tuesday after reporting a minor groin problem, McKenna is hopeful the former Barnsley man will be involved today.
"Hopefully not too bad, he hasn’t trained with the group yet,” he said. "He just felt a little bit in his groin as he was taking a shot in the warm-up but we’re going to try and get him training with the group this morning and see how he is from there.”
Regarding the new signings, McKenna says Camara won’t make the trip to Accrington having been suffering with a groin injury which has kept him out of Plymouth’s early season games.
"Panutche we need to be a little bit careful with, he’s going to join in with the training group today but he hasn’t trained very much over the last few weeks with the issue that he’s had,” he added.
"We’re going to have to be a little bit more patient with him, make sure that we get him right and get him up to speed and make sure that medically he’s absolutely fine. So we won’t see him this weekend.
"Gassan is fit and available, obviously hasn’t trained with the group yet but is going to be available for selection for the squad for Saturday.”