Shrewsbury Town striker John Marsden on the road to recovery
Injured Shrewsbury striker John Marsden is nearing a return to the first team and could be back in action in two weeks time.
The 20-year-old summer signing suffered a broken foot in Town's second match of the campaign, the League Cup first round clash with Bolton Wanderers.
Marsden, a former Celtic and Liverpool youth team player, had impressed in pre-season and enjoyed a lively Football League debut against MK Dons on the opening day of the League One campaign.
He has since been out for more than five weeks so far but manager Graham Turner has been pleased with his progress in recent weeks and he expects Marsden to back in contention in two-three weeks.
Turner said: "John Marsden is making good progress. It was unfortunate that he got injured after looking quite impressive.
"He was desperate for an opportunity here and when that came along he was looking forward to it.
"So to have an injury that has kept him out for six weeks has been a blow but he is making progress.
"He is straight line running at the moment and he's probably another two to three weeks away."
Marsden's return would provide welcome competition up front within the Town ranks which have since been swelled by the arrivals of loanees Graham Burke and Curtis Main from Aston Villa and Middlesbrough respectively.
Town's injury problems do seem to be easing, with defender Dave Winfield rated as an outside possibility to make the bench for this weekend's trip to Crawley having shaken off a hamstring strain.
But with injured skipper Tamika Mkandawire unlikely to be back before Town's home clash against Wolves on September 21, Turner admitted his squad is still a bit light on numbers.
He remains keen to bolster the head count following the re-opening of the loan window. But asked if any new recruits were likely prior to Saturday, he said: "I would like to, but I don't see it as a serious prospect before the weekend."
Meanwhile, strikers Tom Bradshaw and Graham Burke will return to training today following international duty for Ireland and Wales Under-21s respectively.
Bradshaw was handed game-time as a second-half substitute in both of Wales' European Championship qualifiers against San Marino and Moldova while Burke received an eight-minute run out against Germany on Tuesday.
