- by Chris Mortley

Doncaster Rovers defender Wayne Thomas has sustained a small fracture to his knee, it has been revealed.

The defender, who signed for Rovers this summer following his release from Southampton, suffered the injury in training; however Rovers manager Sean O'Driscoll is hoping that the injury is not as serious as initially feared.

"He (Thomas) went back down to London and spoken to the surgeon who operated on his knee before - and he has a small fracture," revealed O'Driscoll.

"It's quite unusual, but it explains why the knee had swollen so much. We're just waiting to see what the prognosis is. I think that the surgeon is pondering what we can and cannot do. It may be something that we can just leave, settle the knee and crack on with it - I'm not sure. It's a bit of an unusual one I think and there is no predetermined diagnosis for it. We don't know what we can do with it at this minute in time. I don't think there is a lot you can do, other than settle the knee down and see if it feels fine."

"The advice is to do what we are doing. He is off crutches and he is walking around and the knee has settled down. We'll just treat it as a ligament strain, which is pretty common in footballers, and see how he reacts as the load levels increase on his knee. If he does get a reaction, we will need to revisit what we can do and what we can't do. We've got a really experiences physio in John Dickens, so he is in good hands. We won't push him too far and touchwood he will be okay and it's something that isn't as serious as first thought.