CITY are waiting on medical results to find out what is holding up Jamie Walker’s return.

Walker saw a specialist yesterday afternoon to try to get to the bottom of his injury delay.

The Bantams have not won in the league since Walker went off after a heavy challenge at Doncaster six weeks ago.

Graham Alexander hoped to have him back in action by now and admits his continued absence is a huge blow.

“Like I’ve said, it has sort of plateaued out after getting to a certain point. It’s not progressed as quickly as we’d hoped.

“He went for a consultation and we’re waiting on the diagnosis from that. Fingers crossed but we don’t know which way that will go.

“With the timeframe given, he was returning to training and playing about now.

“He’s not even trained so he’s obviously behind schedule. We just want to make sure we look after the players as best as we can.”

Walker had been a key figure in City’s six-match winning run before his injury and scored twice.

Alexander added: “There were a lot of good performances at the time but he obviously had that goal threat from midfield.

“Results since and our lack of scoring opportunities will tell you his absence has had an effect on that.

“Jamie’s one of those guys who doesn’t want to miss training, doesn’t want to miss a game – he just wants to be a footballer.

“Any time for him on the sidelines is a real frustration. It’s frustrating for me as a manager because we saw how well he was playing when he was fit.

“It goes without saying that we’ve missed him anyway. But I feel for the lad because he loves his football.”

 

 

Tyreik Wright stepped up his recovery work with the medical staff yesterday and the City boss hopes to involve him with the rest of the squad before the end of the week.

“We’re hoping he joins in some sort of football training and then see how quickly he progresses.

“We just have to make sure he doesn’t have a recurrence. We have to look after him and treat him carefully.”

Jake Young is not expected to train today as he waits for the swelling to go down on his ankle. The striker took a whack in Saturday’s game with Wimbledon just before he came off.

He was about to be replaced as a precaution anyway after reporting a tightness in his hamstring.