With Bren Dickenson off to see a specialist today, to get news on the next steps with his ACL injury, manager Paul Simpson brought us up to date with the latest from the treatment table.
“Bren has an appointment at 5pm today to find out what the next course of action is,” he explained. “I won’t pre-empt anything with that, we need to wait and see.
“We have an idea what we think it will be but we need to hear what the specialist has to say. It’s a tough one for Bren, and it seemed such an innocuous situation.
“Somebody landed on him and it opened up his knee, and he said at the time that it felt bad. You just never know with things like that.
“He seems ok at the moment but I think it will probably start to sink in with the reality of what’s just happened once he’s spoken to the surgeon and he’s heard for definite what’s required.
“It’s a massive blow for him because he’s worked hard through pre-season and I’ve been really pleased with what I’ve seen from him.
“As I’ve said with Joel and Josh, and their ACL recovery, it’s up to us as a group of staff and as a football club to make sure we give them the best attention we possibly can.
“Even without an operation he’s looking at a number of months out, at least, but let’s not guess at this stage.
“All we know is that he’s got a good few months ahead of him where he’ll have to work hard and get himself right.
“I know the rest of the players will look after him, and he’s a lad with a strong personality, so hopefully that will help him as he deals with this setback.”
“The good thing is that over the next three or four weeks we should see Taylor Charters back, and I see him in that kind of role.
And it was good to see a return to training for Jamie Devitt, who missed out at last weekend through illness.
“Dev is back in with us and we can confirm that he had Covid,” he told us. “He ran on his own on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and he’s come back in this morning after testing negative.
“He’s trained really well today so he’s another new signing to add to the squad, because he only signed his contract last week. He’ll come into the group for the weekend.
“He’s going to be a little bit short in terms of match fitness because he missed a spell out. You never know how Covid affects people.
“He had a positive Covid test, but he did his isolation period, and it shows how keen he is with the facts he did his runs. He seems fine now.
“Losing Tobi was a blow, he’s got another five or six weeks, but these are the things we just have to deal with.”
And there was excellent news for Omari Patrick who added baby Mya to his family on Tuesday.
“He’s in a good place,” the gaffer said. “It’s perfect how it’s worked out from a selfish point of view.
“He trained on Monday and he said his partner was already getting quite regular contractions, so I spoke to him and said I wasn’t going to play him in the game at Gretna, because I didn’t think he needed that as a distraction.
“I wanted him to train on Tuesday and get a good session in his legs, then have Wednesday off with the rest of the lads to spend some time at home.
“As it worked out, on Tuesday morning we got the call that his partner Lucia was in proper labour, so he was there for it all. It was fantastic timing from her which was great for us!
“I sent him a message on Wednesday to see what he wanted to do and how he wanted to deal with the rest of the week, because it’s a massive thing for a family to welcome their first child.
“I didn’t know where his head was going to be at but he said no, I want to come in on Thursday and come down to Colchester. That’s brilliant for us and I know his partner has got plenty of help at home as well, which is the main thing.”
“And Callum Guy is fine,” he concluded. “I think he took a whack on his calf but it was more just cramp.
“I like that, because it tells me they’re working hard. They all put a right shift in. There was some sore legs and tiredness still on Monday, but they’re all fine now and ready to go again, and I imagine come 3pm on Saturday they’ll certainly be ready to go again.”
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