NILE Ranger is not expected to travel to Colchester with his Swindon Town teammates today after failing to report to training on Thursday.

The striker, whose recent absences from Town’s Liddington base have coincided with preparations for his upcoming trial, was meant to return to Wiltshire from London yesterday but did not attend the session at the club’s training ground.

The 22-year-old was at Newcastle Crown Court on October 28 - when he denied a rape charge - and according to court records he was due back again on November 11 when the location of his trial was to be determined.

Ranger missed a team breakfast meeting ahead of the Robins’ 4-0 defeat to Macclesfield on Saturday and is understood to have failed to attend a number of practices over the course of the past month, much to the frustration of the coaching staff.

The club granted him leave over the weekend and, according to manager Mark Cooper, he was never due to feature in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy victory over Wycombe on Tuesday night.

However, he was supposed to be back in Swindon on Thursday morning but did not turn up.

Town declined the Advertiser’s invitation to make a statement on the matter yesterday, but Cooper briefly covered the subject during his press conference ahead of the League One clash in Essex tomorrow.

When asked whether Ranger had trained, Cooper initially said: “I’ll answer that in a minute but the burning question should be, we won a game on Tuesday and we’ve got a game to prepare for on Saturday so I don’t understand.

“The fans should be talking about the game on Saturday and should be concentrating more on the players that played on Tuesday and will play on Saturday.

“Nile Ranger was given some time off last weekend, he had a few personal issues that he needed to sort out, he was never going to be involved on Tuesday and he was supposed to be in for training today.”

When asked whether Ranger had turned up yesterday morning, Cooper said: “No.”

And when questioned about his whereabouts, the Swindon manager said: “I don’t know. That’s all I’m prepared to say on the matter. He wasn’t at training today, he’s been given a little bit of time off but he wasn’t at training today.”