United boss Paul Simpson confirmed today that Nottingham Forest loanee Fin Back had surgery this week following the hamstring injury picked up in the away game at Salford.
"Fin had surgery over in Finland on Wednesday morning with a surgeon that Forest use over there,” he said. “I had contact with him later that day and he says that it all seems to have gone well.
“We’re probably looking at four months for him, so that’ll be March I would imagine. The important thing is that he’s looked after, and it’s all done in the right way so that he comes back stronger.”
“We’ve had conversations with Forest about what this means for the loan deal, but if we’re looking at a four-month recovery period it’s whether or not Forest want to keep him in the building with them,” he added. “We have an obligation that we keep him for the season but there is a window in January where they can recall him.
“The conversation will go on with them to see if they would do us the favour of thinking about that because obviously it’s an expense that we have to pay out for a player who possibly won’t play much more of a part for us.
“Whatever comes we’ll make sure we do what’s right for Fin. He actually texted me to say that he was flying back from Finland on Friday so he was coming up on Saturday to watch the game with his dad.
“I had to say to him that it was maybe a little bit too early for him to be sat in a car and coming up here when he’s just had an operation, but it will be really good to see him when he can come.”
On the blow to a player who has made himself really popular at Brunton Park over the course of his loan period, he said: “He’s a brilliant lad and he’s shown what a good professional he is in the way he’s conducted himself.
“He’s also a very good footballer and he looks like he’s going to have a very good career. I just hope he has a full recovery and we see him again.
“I know Forest have been delighted with what we’ve done for him and they’re really pleased with his development and the way we’ve looked after him.
“The fact that he’s had games regularly has been good because it isn’t always a given when you bring a loan player in.
“He’s been a definite starter for us and as a character, it’s been a pleasure to see the type of personality he is. He’s been a great loan for us and hopefully we’ll get some more from him as well.”
More bad news came when it was confirmed that Ben Barclay is set to spend a spell on the sidelines having taken a whack to then ankle in Tuesday afternoon’s reserve game.
“Ben was really frustrated, raging in fact, when it became apparent that his ankle had been hurt,” the gaffer told us. “It’s not looking good as we speak now.
“I don’t think there was anything malicious in the challenge, but it wasn’t a good one. It was a really poor one from the lad.
“It’s probably going to be four to six weeks with Ben, and it’s the other ankle to the one he’s just come back from. It really is sod’s law for him because he’s worked really hard to get to the point where he was ready to play again.
“He had the first injury, then a bit of a recurrence when we were doing set plays ahead of the last County Cup game, but he got himself through that.
“We were looking at him playing for 65 minutes or so on Tuesday, just in case we needed him for this weekend with us potentially being a little bit short if Corey Whelan isn’t available.
“He would have been a good option because of the level of fitness he’s at, so to get that challenge and for his ankle to swell in the way it did - it was a massive swelling – so we’re just hoping it all goes down quickly.
“It’s not as bad as we feared because we actually thought he’d broken his leg at first. If the swelling does subside quickly it’ll be four weeks, if it takes a little bit longer it’ll be closer to six weeks.
“The plan is that he’ll stay up here with us for his rehab period because it’s literally a case of getting the swelling down and then we can start to build him up again. We’ll keep him in the building and hopefully he’ll be fine.”
Having mentioned Corey, he added: “He had quite a bit of swelling on his foot from the knock he took in the first half at Walsall.
“He got another whack in the second half and that’s when we had to bring him off. It’s too early to say whether or not he’ll be right for the weekend, but we’re hopeful that he’ll be available for us.
“And better for us is that Callum Guy has trained all week. He came back in on Monday and that puts him back into the mix for the weekend.
“The flip side that Morgan Feeney certainly won’t be with us for this weekend. He’s been out on the grass today doing some steady running.
“We’re hoping to get him up to 90 or 100% pace next week possibly with a view to being involved in the game against Barrow. We’ll have to wait and see.”
Another step forward for the squad was that Joel Senior got 45 minutes and Jamie Devitt a full game as they continued their respective journeys back to full fitness.
“Dev did 90 minutes because of the other things that happened in the game on Tuesday,” he said. “We weren’t expecting that, so that was good.
“Joel was always only ever going to play half a game, but when Ben had to go off it caused a bit of a rethink with Dev.
“He came through it, which is brilliant, and he did a recovery session today. He’s clearly getting fitter and stronger.
“I think everybody in the club was delighted to see Joel back and I thought he really grew into the game. His body was a bit sore afterwards, which you’d expect, and he’s trained again today, so we’ll keep building him up.
“We’ll have a look at whether or not we use him against Bransty Rangers on Tuesday, and we’ll look to keep progressing him.”
Speaking more about the Blackpool reserve game, he concluded: “The game on Tuesday showed that the players involved were lacking in match minutes.
“We played against a young Blackpool side who were full of enthusiasm and it certainly looked like our players needed it.
“I wasn’t very happy with the performance, and I wasn’t particularly happy with the application or the result.
“I would have liked a better performance and a positive result, but that’s irrelevant because it was about getting players match fit.
“It’s made it obvious that there needs to be work done with the lads who aren’t playing regular football.
“That’s something we need to look at as a group of staff and we’ll have to work them harder when they aren’t playing so that they’re ready to go out and do a 90-minute game.
“We had to finish the game with ten men because we had people getting cramp, and that’s really disappointing. That for me is unacceptable, it shouldn’t happen.
“We’ll look at it all as a group of staff and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”