Gillingham manager Steve Evans bracing himself for bad news regarding severity of Mark Byrne's knee injury sustained against Sunderland

By: Luke Cawdell lcawdell@thekmgroup.co.uk

Published: 07:40, 09 December 2019

Updated: 07:41, 09 December 2019

Gillingham boss Steve Evans admits he’s not expecting good news regarding Mark Byrne’s knee injury.

The midfielder was helped off the pitch on Saturday after a collision just before half-time.

Mark Byrne limps out of Saturday's game against Sunderland Picture: Ady Kerry

Evans said: “There was no malice in the challenge, I think it was block on block and Mark felt his knee a bit.

“He had it strapped up and will have it scanned on Monday (today).

“It’s not a break but it doesn’t look as if it’s going to be great news. We hope the degrees of the bad news are lesser rather than stronger.

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“He has been such a big player for us and he is wholly committed, everything we love about a professional player, he brings that to the table.

“He will get scanned and we won’t hide from anyone what it is.”

Byrne was on the bench for the first two games of the season but since then has been an ever-present starter for Evans, who described the Irishman as “superb.”

Evans will at least have more options available to him next week in the midfield department.

Fit-again Matty Willock was left out at the weekend, with Evans preferring to let him have extra training on Saturday rather than sit on the bench, while Stuart O’Keefe has overcome a hamstring strain.

Evans said: “It would have been easy to stick Matty on the bench to get 10 minutes but I thought it would be better for him to have four sessions on Saturday.

“When I went into the dressing room he was sitting on the floor, pretty tired I think!

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“We will have Stuart O’Keefe back as well, for sure. He will be training by Tuesday.”