Tom Clayton has suffered a major setback in his recovery from a thigh injury that has seen him miss most of the season.

The thigh injury that Clayton suffered during a pre-season game against Swansea City in July has limited him to just 104 minutes of action across four games this season.

Clayton had been close to making a return to the first-team picture, with Michael Flynn having previously stated the defender was on the verge of a return, although it was revealed in the pre-match press conference ahead of Colchester that Flynn was waiting for news over another setback.

Following the game, Flynn revealed that Clayton had hit another roadblock in his recovery from injury and would not be back for a considerable period of time.

He said: “I had an update on Tom Clayton and again this just sums up the week, Tom is likely to be out for ten to 12 weeks.

“So, it has not been a good week, but do you know what? When you are down and out and people are stomping all over you and you feel like nothing can change, then there is only one way to go and that is up.

“And that is what we will do as a football club, me as a man, as a manager, and as a leader to them, we will do that together.

“When we get the next win, it will feel even sweeter.”

The other long-term absentee who Flynn said had been close to making a return in recent weeks is Rushian Hepburn-Murphy.

The 25-year-old has been missing since making a substitute appearance against Stockport County with a knee injury which was causing him consistent discomfort despite his scan coming back clear.

Speaking prior to the Colchester game, Flynn said that Hepburn-Murphy was getting very close to making his return to first-team action and was down to a judgement call over whether he would be able to feature last weekend.

He said: “Rushian could play some involvement [against Colchester] but that is going to be one that I am going to have to sleep on.

“I will have to look back at the GPS data and speak to the medical team because of his injury past.

“I don’t want to risk it for the likelihood of half an hour or 20 minutes, and we have just got to be really careful on that.”