Franks undergoes hernia operation

The centre half posted a picture of himself on Twitter after the procedure yesterday, with the message: “Thanks for all the messages. Just woke up and the operation went well. Hard work starts now.”

At his press conference yesterday afternoon, boss John Still admitted the injury could have been diagnosed earlier as he said: “That puts him on the backburner for a bit now, I felt a bit for Frase, he played a little bit with that.

“I’m not going to call him unprofessional, but he should have told us about it earlier.

“I actually could see he wasn’t quite right, that’s what brought this on, I could see it, so he’s had that done and a few weeks now until he gets back.”

Meanwhile, Paul Benson might be okay to feature against Cheltenham Town this weekend, although there are still doubts over Shaun Whalley and Alex Lawless.

Still added: “He’s (Benson) trained a little bit this week, he’ll train again and hopefully be okay.

“Whalley’s not quite fit enough to be involved the weekend, if he has a good week then next week we might be able to find a place.

“Alex Lawless played a bit last week, had a little reaction to what he did, so he’s not going to be involved.”

Midfielder Jonathan Smith completed his first 90 minutes since December in the 5-0 Final Third Development League win over Bournemouth on Tuesday, but might not be in contention for a start just yet.

Still added: “The one thing we have with Smudger is he’s been able to train, but not been able to compete, so that’s the balance of that.

“He got 90 minutes in, and he’s trained, so we’ll see how he is.

“General fitness will be okay but match fitness and general fitness are two different things, so we’re almost a bit day by day with him.”