SWINDON Town striker Kaiyne Woolery has been hit by a further injury setback ahead of Saturday's trip to Colchester United after damaging the rear side of his knee in a behind-closed-doors friendly.

Woolery, 23, missed the opening two months of the season after suffering from the side effects of an operation he underwent during the summer.

The former Bolton Wanderers forward made his return during Town’s 3-0 Checkatrade Trophy win over Plymouth Argyle at the start of October.

Appearing from the bench, Woolery demonstrated his sprinting ability and found a way past Kyle Letheren in the closing minutes to open his scoring account for the season.

However, his test of patience will now extend for an additional two weeks as Swindon boss Phil Brown confirmed his young striker has been hit by another niggle.

“The only one that is a negative is Kaiyne Woolery,” said Brown, who targeted Town’s FA Cup first round clash against York City as Woolery’s return date.

“He hasn’t come through a little setback that he’s got. He’s had a pain issue in the back of his knee.

“My physio assures me it’s nothing to do with the operation or nothing to do with the original injury – with that in mind, it does set him back.

“We got a full 90 minutes in our game behind closed doors against Oxford – that’s the game where the injury happened.

“It’s a fresh injury, and it has set him back another couple of weeks. So, we’re looking at a couple of games – after the FA Cup – on the training ground to get Kaiyne back to the party.

“He’s not available this weekend, Chris Robertson is the only other one out.”

With only two players in the treatment room, Brown has been occupying part of his time in the week assessing morale and spirit levels in his camp.

Having player-coach Matt Taylor sit in both the dressing room and management room has proved beneficial to Brown, who admits he’s got a ‘good gauge’ on where his players’ morale levels stand.

Understandably, such levels are high following Saturday’s away win at Notts County.

However, the Town boss has warned his men to treat in-form Colchester with the respect they deserve – particularly in both boxes.

He said: “Every team in this division can beat anyone, we’ve always said that.

“Colchester is a team we must respect. The style of football that they play and their win at Lincoln is no mean achievement.

“What’s coming out of their changing room will be totally different to what happened last season.

“It’s nice to have Matt Taylor both sides of the fence – in the changing room and in the coaching room.

“You get a proper gauge from Matt.

“My view from the training ground is that the place is bubbling, but I want a level of consistency.

“I want a run of games like where we went undefeated in six or seven games – even though we didn’t win every one of those fixtures in that run.

“Something like that would show me what this group is capable of.”