Swansea City defender Marcos Painter will miss the next three weeks with a hamstring injury.
Painter hobbled out early on in Monday night's 1-0 win over MK Dons in the Area Final of the JPT to be replaced by Kevin Austin and has now been delivered the blow that he will not return until towards the end of March, missing key games against Huddersfield, Millwall, Tranmere and Northampton as a bare minimum.
The club are placing the blame on too many games causing the injury although any distractions the club may have had are now out of the way with just league fixtures remaining on the calendar and no rearranged dates from their cup exploits to fit in. The only possible change to the fixture list from here on in would happen if Bristol Rovers were to draw their FA Cup tie with West Brom - the replay is scheduled for the week we are due to play at their place.
Speaking via the official site, Richie Evans had this to say about Painter's injury "Again the injury is largely down to the huge number of games we've had to play in recent weeks,'' he said. "There are some tired bodies in the squad."
There wasn't all bad news to come out of the treatment room, however, with Paul Anderson now fully fit from his own hamstring injury, while Leon Britton (calf) and Ferrie Bodde (shoulder) are well on their way to recovery in time for the League One trip to Huddersfield on Saturday (3pm)."
Roberto may find himself dipping into the loan market to gain cover for Painter.