Town midfielder Jim Magilton is to undergo operations on both legs in the summer to rid him of possibly career threatening injury problems. The Northern Irishman has had injury problems all season and now the full extent of these is coming to light.

Magilton said the problem is "knots in the veins" which will definitely require surgery and he faces eight weeks out of the game. He is to talk to both George Burley and Northern Ireland manager Sammy McIlroy about the date of the operations. He has a tricky balancing act on his hands as he will have to miss out on either the World Cup qualifiers in June or the beginning of next season. Magilton described it as a "delicate situation."

Meanwhile he has been recovering from the hamstring injury that saw him miss training after Northern Ireland's 1-0 loss to the Czech Republic at the weekend. Magilton hopes that he will be OK: "It doesn't feel any way as bad as it did on Saturday night when I thought I was going to be a doubt. Our physio has been working round the clock on it, so hopefully it should be all right."

George Burley yesterday urged his midfielder, who is suspended for Monday's game against Southampton, not to take any risks with the injury: "I know Jim misses out next Monday, but if a hamstring twinge is really aggravated then he could be out for a month. I’m sure Jim is keen to play again for Ireland again, but hopefully he’ll be cautious regarding the injury."

Town's reserves won 1-0 against Leicester at Filbert Street last night. The Town goal came from Richard Logan. John Scales returned from injury and came through with no problems. If anyone was there and wants to scrawl a few words on the game for us please feel free to mail them to us. Cheers.

Jamie Clapham has injured a foot during training and is definitely out of tomorrow's Russell Tanner testimonial at Braintree. Town are taking a strong side to the Essex club to get some match practice in prior to Monday's Sky game with Southampton.

Mark Burchill has returned from the Scotland U21 camp nursing a virus. This prevented him getting a call into the full squad for the game with San Marino.

Definitely included in the line-up at Braintree will be Hermann Hreidarsson and Marcus Stewart. Town have had a lot of spare weeks recently and match practice is short. Marcus Stewart has played just one game since the Arsenal game on February 10th.

Matt Holland and Richard Wright will certainly not be involved as they are both with their respective international squads still. Titus Bramble may play in the Braintree game if Howard Wilkinson leaves him out of the England U21 side for tonight's game with Albania.

Photo: Action Images

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