Miguel Freckleton’s absence from the Swindon Town first team has been explained by a previously unknown ankle injury keeping him on the sidelines.

The Sheffield United loanee has not featured in a matchday squad since Ian Holloway’s first game in charge, the FA Cup First Round win over Colchester United.

With the return of Ryan Delaney and Grant Hall in the last few weeks, it had previously been thought that his absence was due to being down the pecking order.

Following the defeat against Milton Keynes Dons four weeks ago, Holloway had said that he had been left out for “totally tactical reasons” with him being given the chance to impress against Bristol Rovers in a behind-closed-doors friendly that week.

Speaking ahead of Swindon visiting The JobServe Community Stadium, Marcus Bignot revealed that he had picked up an injury in that game which has kept him out since.

He said: “[Where does his future lie if he is not being selected?] At the moment, Miguel is injured so with regards to that question it will be answered when he is ready to return to play.

“He is injured, he picked up an injury when we had the behind-closed-doors game with Bristol Rovers, which he played really well in so it was a loss to lose him.

“He is not too far away, so it will not be too long before we see a return for Miguel on the grass.

“He took a knock to the ankle and it is around the ligaments for that but it is nothing too serious.

“Right now he is in that transitional period from the physio room and now hopefully back onto the grass before he gets the all clear to have physical contact and return to the full group.”

After a punishing FA Cup tie in Accrington on Saturday when Town played 120 minutes, much of it with ten men, Bignot gave an update on the players’ fitness.

He said: “There are no new injuries, so the group is going to be as we were on Saturday.

“Jaxon Brown was cup-tied and he also had an illness, so we will check on that this afternoon to see if he has come through that.

“In an ideal world, you want players who are robust and can withstand the Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday.

“Where we are at the moment, we don’t want to have too much change but we are coming from an extra time, so [rotation] is a conversation we will have.”