Shrewsbury Town's Elliott Bennett to undergo minor ankle surgery

The experienced and versatile Bennett, 33, is one of just two Town players yet to feature in pre-season friendlies after last night's 3-1 home defeat to Burnley.

Manager Cotterill says Bennett's problem is a long-standing one that has not cleared up over the summer period.

Bennett has had two injections, which have not eased the problem, and Monday's procedure will flush out his ankle area, which the club hope will solve any issues - if so meaning just a short recovering process in time for the League One kick off in a fortnight at Morecambe.

"Elliott's had this nagging ankle since the end of last season, he's seen a couple of specialists," Cotterill explained.

"He's had it injected twice now, we don't feel he's kicked on enough so quite probably there's an operation on Monday morning to flush his ankle out.

"It's nothing major, we hope. But he'll have that at 8am Monday.

"He's done an incredible amount of training on that WAT Bike, I think the WAT Bike needs new tyres he's peddled so much.

"He's very fit and in a good place, apart from we need to clear up the ankle.

"Before anyone says anything we couldn't have got it done at the end of the season because nobody said we needed to, nothing showed up on the scans.

"Nothing showed up on anything we had done, the first one thought it would settle down in time.

"Then he went to see him again, had it injected, went again and had it injected again.

"It's disappointing, really, that we've got to this stage, but the last thing now will be the wash out and hopefully that works, maybe if there's any little fragments of bone that keep pinching him or something."

Bennett was due to have surgery last Monday but his specialist had to withdraw due to Covid.

Aiden O'Brien, one of six new recruits this summer, is yet to feature and Cotterill said the former Millwall, Sunderland and Portsmouth forward is suffering with muscle soreness due to a quieter off-season programme.

He said: "Aiden O'Brien is suffering from DOMS (Delayed-onset muscle soreness) at the moment."

"He's another one that's probably suffered a little from no summer programme.

"Where we're pushing him so hard, he was in the warm-up tonight but still felt really stiff and tight in his groin area, there's no point putting him on.

"He was due for 15 minutes tonight when it'd hopefully slowed down, but if he breaks down it ends up being a waste of time."