Mike Jackson was struggling towards the end of last week's pre-season training with a knee problem. He was booked in to see a specialist yesterday and the results of this visit are now available.

The news is that Jacko will need rest up to allow his knee to settle and it is a blow to Simmo's pre-season planning: "Mike Jackson saw the specialist on Monday afternoon and it was confirmed that he has bruising to the bone around the knee joint.

"It is quite a large area of bruising and is giving him some discomfort.

"The specialist has said that it could be anything between 4 to 12 weeks for the recovery, we are hoping that it will be somewhere in the middle of that.

"What Mike needs to do now is to shut himself down and do no impact work on the knee joint, let it settle down and hopefully once he's given it a good rest he will come back fitter and stronger."

With Jacko missing that leaves Town a little short in the centre back department with only Graham Coughlan and Kelvin Langmead being recognised centre-backs. There are other options in the squad to cover the defensive positions and Simmo is happy with the situation for now: "It does leave us looking a little short in that area but we have a number of players who can cover there.

"Shane can slot in there and did very will over last pre-season, Dean Holden can go in at centre-half and it does show the importance of having players in the squad who can adapt.

"I'd like Graham and Kelvin to remain fit and Shane and Dean to remain fit and if it does then I think we do have a number of options to make up that back four."

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