Midfelder Chris Lumsdon was the only United player to start every game this season - right up until he took a rather hefty knock in the first half of the 0-0 draw at Brentford 10 days ago.

Lummy (27) had to be replaced by Neale McDermott after failing to shake off the injury, and Dolly told us today: "The swelling is going down nicely on his ankle now. We've started doing a bit of manual work on the area and he's been on the cross trainer and the bike, so things are looking up."

"I would say, though," he added, "that he is still at least a week away. It all depends on how quickly he heals, but it could even be two or three weeks, if we're being honest. It is a nasty injury because the main part of the initial pain came from the fact that he took some studs to the bone on the inside of his ankle. He's been getting over that, only to find that the pain from a stretched ligament on the outside has taken over. So, basically, he took a whack to the inside and twisted the outside, both at the same time."

"I think it's only natural that he'd feel the pain on the inside more at first, because I'm sure you can imagine just how much it actually hurts to take a stud on the boney bit of your ankle," he said. "Unfortunately for him, once he got over that he then had to deal with the ligament strain. We didn't need to scan it, or anything like that, because we were happy with what we were dealing with, but it's another type of injury that needs patience and a bit of treatment."

On whether the fabled dip in Whitley Bay had helped at all, Dolly told us: "Yeah, to be fair, it probably did. That bracing salty North Sea water has helped to bring the bruising and swelling out, so it's done him some good."