Town boss Kieran McKenna has revealed that midfielder Dominic Ball is set to miss the rest of the season with a knee injury which will require surgery.
Ball, who joined the Blues on a free transfer in the summer having left QPR, was absent from the squad which faced Cheltenham today having picked up the knock at Charlton a fortnight ago.
"Dominic’s been seeing a specialist so we’re waiting for a report on that. Dominic’s unfortunately got a very severe knee injury that in all likeliness rules him out for the season,” McKenna said.
"He picked it up really innocuously in the Charlton game, didn’t feel quite right in the Bracknell game on Monday night and has seen a specialist this week and has an issue with his meniscus that’s going to need quite a complicated surgery.
"Extremely disappointed for him first and foremost because I think he was primed to be a really big player for us and really improve and kick on in his career, so very disappointing for him but knowing his character he’ll bounce back from it.
"Tyreece John-Jules, his hamstring injury is more severe than we hoped, so he’s again getting a specialist’s opinion whether he needs a surgical repair, but it’s going to be a matter of months rather than weeks.
"Janoi [Donacien] was just tight, he felt some tightness in the warm-up and he felt that tightness continue as the game went on. Hopefully nothing major but was probably the right decision at this moment to put his hand up and come off before there was any more damage.”
Reflecting on what’s a lengthy list of injuries at present, McKenna added: "It’s quite a really strange period, to be honest. We’ve had a very unusual amount of surgeries, a very unusual amount of contact injuries and bizarre falls, and like Dominic’s injury, Greg Leigh’s injury or Sone [Aluko]’s injury where it’s a major joint injury without any contact.
"We’ve only had two muscular injuries in the whole season, Wes Burns, who missed around 10 days, and now Tyreece.
"Other than that, no muscle injuries which is, of course, what you usually look at and analyse as a group of staff.
"Usually, you attribute contact injuries or in our case a lot of the time non-contact injuries, which are the most hard to avoid and plan for and we seem to have had a very large number of them.
"Probably another area where the rub of the green hasn’t been on our side, but we have to stay really strong as a group of players, as a staff. The boys are fighting, I don’t think anyone can question for one second the attitude or commitment of the players on the match pitch, certainly not on the training ground and I’ve full belief in this group to keep performing and keep picking up results.”