Dolly gives us the latest from the treatment room:

We have had a good look at the X-Ray that Jeff Smith had yesterday, and it was clear as far as broken bones is concerned. It's still very swollen, so we'll be treating him for that until after the weekend. As I said yesterday, we can then get him in for a scan on either Tuesday or Wednesday, and we can see what has been going on in there.

Danny Carlton picked up a bit of an injury to his knee in the Reserve match, and Gary Madine took a kick to his foot in the same game, but we're hopeful that both might make it for Saturday. We'll just have to wait and see on that.

Scott Dobie has done a bit more with me today, and we are already seeing some improvement. He's not quite there yet, but we should see him getting fitter and fitter as each day goes by.

Paul Thirlwell is coming on well, but it's very frustrating for him, as you would imagine. We're still a good way away from him returning to full training, but he has been doing some good build up work.

Joe Garner is down in Blackburn, today and tomorrow, and is doing some of the early post-op work with them. It's good that he can do that, as it makes it easier for him as he continues to recover. I was in the operating theatre to watch the operation on Monday, and it was a good experience. To be honest, the procedure that Joe went through was pretty boring. I've seen this kind of repair a few times before, but his was done using a different method. The surgeon used a piece from Joe's hamstring tendon, and it was a very neat and clean operation. I've seen a repair done using the patella tendon, and that involves a bit of drilling in to the bone and the creation of a boney plug, and things like that, which is much more exciting to watch. Like I say, the one Joe had was standard and boring in comparison. With the patella tendon, the surgeon has to drill a little square recess at either end, and then create the plug to hold the new ligament in place. That gets done at the kneecap and also at the bottom end of the joint. It really is fantastic to watch it being done. Having said that, it was excellent to watch Joe being looked after by a really top quality surgeon. At one point, he was telling me that he had to move the new piece of ligament that he had created by about a millimetre. I watched closely, but I had no idea what he was on about, because I couldn't see it move at all. It definitely had though, because when he got it in the right position he started moving around again. It was so neat, and he was so precise, that it really puts your mind at rest. Joe will now have a steady and quiet couple of weeks, and then we can start to build up the muscles around the joint. That will be a very important phase of his recovery, but he'll be looking forward to it.

That's all for now,

Dolly