All the latest from Dolly:

Paul Thirlwell is coming along nicely. He's still having treatment with regards to his calf injury, but the progression for him is steady.  The week after next he'll do some CV work and some light stretching for a week or so, and then we'll progress on to some running. He's still about three weeks away from getting back in to training with the lads, but things are settling down nicely. He will be having a further check and scan in about two weeks time, just to check that the injury has healed and that the surgeon is happy for him to get back in to physical pitch work.

Jeff Smith has resumed training. The reason his recovery has taken longer is that the area that was stitched is actually the main part of his foot that he strikes a ball with. As anyone who has had stitches is aware, it can be quite painful, and if you are repeatedly kicking a ball using that spot  then it's going to hurt. He's had an extra week to let it settle down, but he's back in training now and hopefully should get a bit of a run out in the Reserve game this week.

The swelling has settled right down on Adam Bradley's knee, but I'm not too happy about him at present. We will get him scanned this week, because I feel that he may have nicked a little bit of cartilage. We'll get the scan done on Wednesday, so we should know what's going on when we get the results on Thursday morning.

Zigor Aranalde had 4 stitches in his lip after a challenge in the Southend game. I think he was elbowed. He wanted to carry on, but there was no way that I could have stopped the bleeding. It had actually split the top lip right through to the inside of his mouth, so I could never have stopped that, and unfortunately that was the end of the game for him. I'm pleased to see that it's settled down really well and he's back in training. I'll take the stiches out either later this week or after the game on Saturday, but I don't foresee any problems with him.

Neale McDermott injured his foot. He actually kicked the ground last Tuesday, during training. I'm pleased to say that's settled down now, and it was quite swollen on Wednesday, and that's why we kept him out of the Reserve game.  He should be fine from now on.

Matthew Wood is coming on nicely as well. He started his rehab and is doing some ankle work at the moment. We'll progress that onwards this week and hopefully get him running in the next week or so. He's probably a week or two away from getting back in to training. Bearing in mind there is a Youth Cup game a week on Wednesday, we'll try our best to get him back for that, but if he needs longer then that's just the way it goes. Until we get out on to the pitches with him we simply won't know how far or close we are from a return.

Matthew Brown got stamped on his middle toe, and that was painful. It's gone black and blue, and the nail has been pulled off a little bit, similar to how Gary Madine was a while back. We are just going to give him as much time as possible, with a view to getting him back in to training by the end of the week, and have him available for this weekend's game.

That's all for now,

Keep well,

Dolly