Shrewsbury's Elliott Bennett could be out for 12 weeks

The 33-year-old came off at half-time against Oxford last week as a precautionary measure.

And he was not in the squad for Salop’s 1-0 defeat against Barnsley on Saturday, but a scan has revealed the injury to the wing-back is worse than first feared.

It is a huge blow for Town, as Bennett had only just come back from an ankle injury at the end of September.

But the Town boss is hoping the injury is not too severe, but he admitted he could be out for a length of time.

It is terrible luck for Salop, who have been plagued by injuries this season.

“The scan has not come back very good really as he could be out for three months,” the manager said about the former Blackburn man.

“Which could be painful for us.

“But funnily enough his symptoms are not marrying up with the scan.

“What I mean by that is he is actually doing better than we think he would at this moment in time. He is not close to playing, he has a tear in his soleus so the normal time for that could be anything between 12 and 16 weeks.

“The injury time is still in its infancy at the moment.

“We need to see what develops with that, even Elliott himself thinks it won’t be 12 weeks.

“But even if we cut that by half and say he is available by Christmas, it is still going to be six weeks we are going to be without him.”

Meanwhile, Cotterill also revealed the injections received by Aiden O’Brien and Julien Dacosta in London last week have not been successful.

“The injections on the nerves have not worked,” Cotterill said.

“There is another appointment for them with a nerve specialist in London.

“The specialist works out of Munich, but she works over in England once a month so the earliest we can do that is December 1.

“Potentially they could have operations on the 2nd, but we need to find out.

“We won’t know where the consultation will go until we have that in December.”