Niall Canavan will spend at least another 10 weeks on the sidelines after undergoing an operation on an ankle problem.
The defender has been out of action since the start of November, after landing awkwardly on his ankle during Dale’s Checkatrade trophy tie against Blackburn Rovers at the Crown Oil Arena.
He underwent extensive surgery to reconstruct his lateral ligament just before Christmas and he admits that it has been a very frustrating time.
“Things during this season haven’t gone anywhere near how I wanted them to, but sometimes you can’t really do much about it,” he told iFollow.
“I played in the Checkatrade Trophy game against Blackburn and that has been the last of the action for me. We tried to rehab the ankle as best we could for four or five weeks but after that, it was quite clear that it wasn’t getting any better so I went to see a specialist and went under the knife just before Christmas.
“Anywhere between 10 and 12 weeks is a realistic timescale for recovery but it just depends on everything running smoothly. I had a bit of a settled Christmas, sat with my foot in the air at home, watching everything going on which was nice but also frustrating at the same time, because when you do a job like this, it’s really hard to literally do nothing and ask other people to do everything for you.
“I was in a pot for two weeks but got that off on Thursday. I’m on my crutches until a week on Thursday and then I’ll be in a boot. Two weeks after that, I should be able to walk around on my own two legs and then I can really push on towards trying to get back outside and doing more active stuff.
“For now, the main thing is improving the range of motion I’ve got in the ankle so that there are no problems caused by that when I come back. That’s also important to reduce the risk of any complications or any other injuries.”
Watch the full interview with Niall on iFollow.