Shrewsbury's Junior Brown ruled out for rest of season

The Town left back Brown, a player of the year contender, has been sidelined for eight weeks after scans revealed he suffered ligament damage to his left knee.

Brown limped off 51 minutes into Saturday's 5-1 home defeat to Wigan and will spend the rest of the season rehabilitating.

Town head physio Chris Skitt was relieved the 26-year-old hadn't suffered more serious damage, as was first feared.

"He has quite a significant injury on the inside ligament of his knee which will keep him out of action for around eight weeks," said Skitt.

"We were quite concerned after the game as it seemed to suggest he had quite a serious injury.

"We assessed him after the game and were concerned so sent him for an MRI scan and we've had the results back and it's really good news.

"He hasn't done his cruciate ligament as we'd feared but has caused some damage to the area which won't need any further intervention.

"The good news it won't keep him out long term in the way of months and months and he'll be able to start the rehab soon.

"He'll be in doing rehab with us and we'll be looking at restoring his balance, getting strength into his knee and controlling the injury to reduce the chance of it happening again."

Brown's injury seemed innocuous at the time and Skitt believes the former Mansfield, Oxford and Fleetwood man has just been unlucky.

"We have spoken to Junior and he's probably done that movement a 100 times before and never had a problem," said Skitt.

"Following his poor touch he jumped into a tackle to push the ball away and got his trailing leg stuck into the floor.

"This caused the injury and dropped his knee into a bad position and he's just been unlucky this time."

Meanwhile, James Wesolowski appeared put himself back into Town's first-team plans with a fairytale return to the Meadow.

The Australian midfielder captained the team, scored a cracker and played the full 90 minutes in last night's Shropshire Senior Cup final against AFC Telford United.

Town won 3-2 on penalties after Wesolowski's 25-yard thunderbolt cancelled out John Cofie's 47th-minute equaliser.

"It felt good - there were a few stages of the game where I was breathing heavily but I got my second wind," said Wesolowski.

"The aim was to get through 45 minutes and see how I felt. In the second alf I wasn't really thinking about my knee - it was more the lungs, so I was very happy to come out of it injury-free."

Town also fielded a trialist, 29-year-old Jamie Hamill at right wing back, formerly of Kilmarnock and Hearts.