Injured Harrogate Town striker Dominic Knowles facing another three weeks on the sidelines

The 26-year-old striker was injured during the 0-0 draw with Wrexham on September 25, and although x-rays initially showed no break in his left foot, a subsequent MRI scan has revealed what appears to be a small avulsion fracture.

Knowles is set to visit a specialist later this week and undergo a CT scan, however the initial prognosis is that he faces at least another two to three weeks without being able to kick a ball.

"It sounded bad at first and I was a little bit worried to be honest, but this is actually reasonably good news," Knowles said.

"The specialist believes that the fracture is a very small one and doesn't expect that I will need an operation.

"Because I've already been taking it easy for over a month, he thinks that in another two to three weeks I might be able to come back.

"It's really frustrating being unable to play, but this has been the story of my life for the past three years, I've had a couple of injuries so I know how to deal with it."

An avulsion fracture can only occur in area of the body where a tendon or ligament attaches to bone.

When either the tendon or ligament is damaged, it pulls away a small piece of the bone, and thus the fracture occurs.

Such injuries can be difficult to diagnose, hence the delay in establishing Knowles' exact problem.

"It's a strange one really, I don't even know how I got the injury. I can pin-point exactly what happened," he added.

"My foot was hurting by half-time in the Wrexham game, but I could still run on it and I thought I must have just been kicked.

"The next day I could barely walk. It did settle down and I tried to train with the rest of the lads later that week but it was like having a knife stuck in my foot when I tried to kick the ball.

"I went for a couple of x-rays but no break could be found. The pain hadn't eased after a few weeks, however, so I had a couple of injections, though still nothing changed, there was no improvement.

"That's when I was sent for the MRI and at least now we think we know what the problem is. It's annoying, but there's not a lot I can do about it."

Town have suffered something of a downturn in fortunes in recent weeks, winning just one of their last six games, but Knowles is backing his team-mates to return to form sooner rather than later.

"I've been doing some work in the gym and then watching the lads train and they're still doing the same things and look really good," he said.

"I'm sure everyone would agree that we haven't been playing as well as we can do recently, but we've still only lost twice in 19 league matches, which is unbelievable really for a team that has just been promoted.

"It's a long season and you're always going to have spells where you're not at your best and drop off a little bit.

"We just need to get back to being ourselves, to doing the things we are good at, and I'm sure that wins will follow."