Blues centre-half Cameron Burgess will undergo surgery next week on the facial injury he suffered during Tuesday night’s 2-0 home victory over Bristol Rovers.
Burgess, 26, was caught in the face by Pirates sub Harvey Saunders’s knee as he slid in to make a challenge in the second half and after treatment on the field was replaced by Dominic Ball.
"He’s went to hospital on Tuesday night after the game and saw the specialist yesterday,” manager Kieran McKenna said.
"He’s got some fractures in his face around his cheek area and around his nose area, so he’s going to require surgery next week.
"He’s got a lot of swelling at the moment, so we have to wait for that to settle down. If that happens, hopefully in the next week or so he’ll have surgery and we’ll see after that what his timescales are on returning to playing.”
Burgess has won a place in the regular starting line-up in recent weeks having initially been on the sidelines after McKenna took charge last December.
"I said it on Tuesday night after the game, I think he’s an example to everyone else in the squad because when we arrived he wasn’t first choice,” the Blues boss said.
"When we came in, the boys who had the shirts played very, very well, had an amazing clean sheet run and he wasn’t getting any minutes on the pitch in the first few months.
"But he really committed himself to the training programme, committed himself to every meeting, every single thing that he could do in the gym, on the pitch, off the pitch, in a classroom to improving himself and to really, really understanding what was going to be required for him to play well in this team. And he made really good strides.
"At the back end of last season he was a solid performer for us and he came back with the same approach this year and has always been there when required.
"When given the opportunities he’s always been a good performer and a reliable player for us, but has also been a really good teammate when he’s not been in the team.
"It’s a shame for him on a personal level because I think he was probably playing the best football of his career and on an upward trajectory but he’ll come back strong again and now it’s up to the rest of the group and the rest of the squad to carry on the good form.”
Regarding Cam Humphreys, who has been absent for training for the last few days with a minor quad injury, McKenna added: "He’s expected to train over the weekend, so should be OK and fully available for the start of next week.”