Junior Brown to miss rest of Shrewsbury Town season with cruciate knee injury

The 28-year-old left-back limped out of Town's 1-0 victory over Fleetwood last weekend and scans on Tuesday revealed the injury was as bad as boss Paul Hurst first feared.

Physio Chris Skitt revealed Brown, who had featured in every League One clash for the leaders in his third season at the club, will miss at least the remainder of the campaign, with the injury generally keeping players sidelined for nine months.

But both he and Hurst added everything will be done to get the popular ex-Fleetwood man, whose contract is up at the end of the current season, back as soon as possible.

"Unfortunately Junior has done his dreaded cruciate ligament," said Skitt. "There are a few associate injuries alongside that that come typically with a cruciate injury.

"It's not good news, obviously. It's something we'll look to manage over the next few months and get him playing as soon as we can.

"It's a time consuming one. In terms of the severity of the injury, it is a cruciate and the cruciate ligament is a key part of the knee.

"The textbook timescale answer is looking at around or about the nine month mark. It's going to be a significant amount of time.

"Obviously there's a possibility, I suppose, at looking to get him back a little earlier but looking at the time frames, that's his season done at the very least.

"We'll be looking at getting him going, looking at his rehab and put timescales on it further down the line."

Town are without a natural left-back to replace Brown, but the boss has a number of options to consider.

Hurst could opt to use centre-half Omar Beckles at left-back, while right-back Joe Riley - who played on the left against West Bromwich Albion's under-23 in the Checkatrade Trophy - is also in contention.

The boss suggested that Mat Sadler and James Bolton could also fill in there, with his side going to 10th-placed Peterborough on Saturday.

Hurst said: "I'm sure we'll get him back as soon as we can and with the way he looks after himself, he's into doing as much as he can away from here as possible, I'm sure it'll be as short a time as his knee allows.

"It's clearly disappointing for everyone concerned with the club, most importantly for Junior, who's having a good season so far – he'll be a big loss for us.

"We have to live with it. Teams pick up injuries, if I was going to pick one in the team, without wishing bad on another player, he would've been the last player."

Skitt, who treated similar injuries to James Wesolowski and Nathaniel Knight-Percival with Town, added: "It's a difficult time, someone's getting told not only is his season over, but the lad's out of contract at the end of the year.

"You've got to deal with all of the psychological side of things.

"After a couple of quiet minutes Junior is a lively and positive lad. It's a matter of explaining to him the process from the get-go and reminding him he can do more than he things - rather than bed-ridden for nine months.

"I've said he will be out working and probably think I'm his worse nightmare at times. The hard work starts now."