David Artell has revealed that club captain Chris Dagnall and leading scorer Chris Porter are expected to be ruled out with injury for a number of weeks.

Dagnall will have swelling removed from around his knee later today and he is expected to be out for at least a month.

Porter suffered a recurrence of his ankle injury against Wycombe Wanderers on Saturday and had to be withdrawn before half-time for Jordan Bowery. Porter is set to undergo an operation to clean out areas of his ankle.

Artell told the club’s official website: “Chris will have some swelling drained from his knee later today. He is expected to be out for three to five weeks.

“Chris has suffered a recurrence of his ankle injury. He has been struggling with it for a couple of weeks and we thought an injection would help but there is some discomfort there.

“It is bone-on-bone and he will have an operation to clean his ankle out. We are expecting him to be out for around six weeks.”