Town boss Kieran McKenna says striker Tyreece John-Jules is currently back at his parent club Arsenal having undergone hamstring surgery and is expected to be out for three-to-four months, but better news is that Sone Aluko and Lee Evans are closing in on returns.
Loanee John-Jules suffered the injury in the 4-4 draw at Charlton and after a scan needed to go under the knife.
"Tyreece has had surgery to repair his hamstring,” McKenna confirmed. "He is going to spend a period of time back at Arsenal for the initial stages of his rehab, which makes sense on a few different levels.
"He will probably join us a few weeks down the line when our medical team and their medical team agree and there is a handover. It is months, rather than weeks, for the injury.
"The injury is approximately a three-to-four-month injury. Of course, you have to see how the recovery period goes.”
Quizzed on whether the number of injuries the squad has suffered recently is going to have an impact on the club’s January business, replacing players rather than adding to the strength of the squad, McKenna said: "With the way the timescale works, touch wood and everyone comes through the next period well, a lot of the injuries will be back by January, Sone Aluko and Lee Evans, Greg Leigh and Gassan are now back.
"Nick Hayes, Dominic Ball and Tyreece are the more longer term ones. Marcus Harness, we won’t know until tomorrow, but the prognosis doesn’t look so bad. So by January, we should be in a stronger position.
"But as we have said before, we are looking at that window to improve the squad progressively and boost the squad again. We have done that in the last transfer window and we will be looking to do that again in January.”
Aluko has been out with a knee problem since the 6-0 thrashing of Northampton in the Papa Johns Trophy at the end of August but McKenna says the Nigerian international and Evans, who has been sidelined since the Derby match a month ago, also with a knee problem, are closing in on returns.
"Sone is progressing really well and will hopefully return to team training in the next couple of weeks,” the Blues boss continued. "He is working really hard out on the grass.
"And Lee is a little bit behind that, but not too far. He is now working in the gym and will come towards grass work pretty soon.”
Another player who has been unavailable for the last few weeks but is now back in training is 19-year-old Tawanda Chirewa, who might otherwise have been on the bench for Tuesday’s Papa Johns Trophy game with Portsmouth.
"Tawanda has been injured with the U21s for the last few weeks,” McKenna added. "But he has trained over the last couple of days.”