Russell Martin expected Joel Latibeaudiere to be out of action for at least three to four months after dislocating his shoulder.
The defender sustained the injury in the opening half of Swansea City's 2-2 draw with Millwall on Tuesday night and was carried off the pitch on a stretcher. He is now unlikely to feature before the season is temporarily paused for the World Cup in Qatar.
"He was in agony. I’m so sad for him," said Martin. "He’s one of the best, Joel. One of the best pros, best lads, mentality, focus every day, as a team-mate the amount of value he adds. I’m really gutted for him. I’m getting a bit emotional talking about him."
And when asked for a time frame on the 22-year-old's expected absence, Martin responded: "Three to four months hopefully, but maybe a bit longer, we'll see with the scan next week when the swelling goes down.
"It’s quite a bad one. It looks like an unnecessary challenge really. He’s back in today and he’ll be at the game tomorrow.
"It’s tough to take. He’s come back in such good shape, he’s in the best shape we’ve seen him in. His performances in pre-season and since the start of the season in any position have been outstanding.
"He was as high as a kite on drugs the other night when he was waiting for his shoulder to be put back in. The first thing he did was ring Gilly [Matt Gill] to say he should have scored that chance, that sums him up.
"The fact we drew the game, he couldn’t believe it. He thought that was the drugs talking! He’ll be so important around this place.
"It just sums him up as a lad. We might get him involved doing some other stuff for us. We’ll have a chat about that in the next couple of weeks."
Martin was determined to bolster his squad options prior to Latibeaudiere's injury, although he is now even more eager to add to his ranks given that the ex-Man City player will be out for an extended period.
And the head coach is hopeful that the Swans will have a better picture of what they can do in the transfer market following Saturday's Championship clash with Luton Town.
"We’ll continue to talk about that and hopefully have a bit more clarity in the next day or two," he added. "I think we needed a couple of players before that happened and it doesn’t change my opinion on that. It probably makes it more important that we do it a bit quicker.
"We have a list of players but it’s getting shorter because a few of them are ending up at other places now. We’ll have to wait and see and that’ll involve discussions with Josh [Marsh] and Julian [Winter] and the ownership over the next couple of days. Hopefully we’ll have a bit more clarity in the next couple of days."
Latibeaudiere and Liam Walsh are both unavailable for the Swans' clash with Luton while Jamie Paterson is continuing to be assessed ahead of the game having missed the matches against Millwall, Blackpool and Oxford United.
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