Boss Kieran McKenna says there’s a feeling of relief that Marcus Harness’s knee injury isn’t as bad as had been initially feared, while the Blues manager was annoyed that news regarding the 26-year-old’s surgery initially appeared in the Portsmouth local media.
Harness suffered the injury in the 24th minute of Tuesday’s Papa Johns Trophy defeat to his former club Pompey.
The News, the Portsmouth local newspaper, was first to report that the former Pompey man had suffered a bucket handle meniscus tear to the cartilage in his knee, suggesting that would keep him out for three months.
Asked how the player is having learned that he would require surgery having undergone a scan, manager McKenna said: "Marcus is fine, he’s a really strong-minded and determined character.
"I think it’s been published in different sites, the detail and speculation on the time of his injury, which I think is disgraceful really from the media outlet of the football club and the people who feed that media outlet.
"I think that’s inappropriate from our point of view, [it’s for us] to give something formal on Marcus.
"He does have a small meniscus tear, he’ll have surgery tomorrow morning, the timescale for that will be determined by the surgeon after the surgery.”
McKenna, who was previously critical of comments Portsmouth manager Danny Cowley made ahead of the league game between the teams in in October, says the injury isn't as bad as was initially thought.
"To be honest, there’s a feeling at the club and with Marcus of relief that it’s not worse with the mechanism of the injury it could have been something a lot more serious,” he added.
"Of course, my first fear is for the player in that situation and for his career and at the moment the outlook is much, much brighter than it was on Tuesday night.
"He’ll have surgery on Saturday morning, he’s looking forward to getting that over and done with and it’s not too major of a surgery and we’re hoping that all goes smoothly and he can be back with us as soon as possible.”
It’s understood that Town hope Harness will be back in eight-to-10 weeks but McKenna says until he has the surgery it’s difficult to make a definitive judgement.
"There’s rough timescales at the moment, which are considerably different than I’ve seen published today,” he continued.
"But, to be honest, unless has anyone has an amazing crystal ball, then you can’t tell the timescale until the surgeon goes in and has a look at the knee.
"At the moment they’re pretty position and hopefully they’re positive after surgery on Saturday.”
Reflecting on Town's ongoing injury struggles, McKenna added: "It’s been that sort of spell really since maybe September onwards. But we’ve probably not changed too much in terms of what I’ve said and he we looked at it.
"We built a strong squad at the start of pre-season to be able to deal with the rigours of the season.
"Absolutely, we feel like there’s been a larger than we’d have expected number of injuries and a really peculiarly large number of non-contact or minimum contact joint injuries, which very typically are tough to predict and avoid.
"But the group have been coping admirably and players have been coming in and doing a really good job and helping the team in different ways. The versatility that we’ve got in the squad for somebody like a Kane Vincent-Young has proved to be very useful and will prove to be very useful over the next couple of weeks and the players who are fit and available are coping admirably with the smaller numbers.
"We have some players back and, of course, that gives us a boost and then it’s very, very disappointing to lose Marcus the other night, again from my perspective the overriding emotion is always towards the player and not towards the team because he’s a fantastic boy who has made a big impact and we feel like was just on the cusp after his performance at Exeter of kicking on to another level again.
"So the first thought is always with the player really, but knowing that the injury wasn’t as serious as it could have been was a relief and I think all the players share that relief for Marcus as well and I know that we’ll have a competitive team and a team ready to go for every game.
"We have a good period of rest in between the games between now and Christmas and we have a fantastic group of players who will do everything they can for the team and I know that we’ll be well prepared and organised and ready to attack every game.”