Magnus Okuonghae could be set for a long lay-off after suffering what appeared to be a serious Achilles injury in Colchester United's 1-0 defeat against Coventry City this afternoon.

Okuonghae was carried off in the closing stages of the U's game against the Sky Blues.

The U's skipper's injury will be assessed further on Monday but Colchester boss Tony Humes admitted the defender could be sidelined for some time.

Humes said: “It looks a bad one – we have to see the extent of the damage but it doesn’t look good. “It’s his Achilles and it’s something we’ll have to look at and see where we go from here.

“Frankie Kent is likely to be out for between four to six weeks, maybe more, so it’s not an area we have got much cover in.

“We’re in a position where we have to look at what we’ve got and possibly dip into the loan market."

Humes admitted his side were not at their best in losing to Coventry, a defeat which saw them drop back into the bottom four in League One.

He said: “It was a poor performance all round.

“Coventry came to make it difficult for us which we expected – they’re a big, strong and physical team and we weren’t good enough to break them down.

“We huffed and puffed in the first half and we had a plan to move the ball quickly but we didn’t do that quickly enough.

“I will give Coventry a lot of credit because they did stop us playing but we weren’t clever enough or didn’t have enough brightness about us to break them down."

For five pages of coverage of the U's game with Coventry City, see Monday's Daily Gazette.