Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna has revealed that midfielder Panutche Camara will be out for months after undergoing yet more groin surgery.

Since making an eye-catching deadine day move from League One rivals Plymouth, the 25-year-old has been limited to one start and three sub appearances, mainly in the cups.

"Panutche had surgery last week on his adductor area," said McKenna, speaking ahead of Town's Boxing Day home clash with Oxford United.

"The specialist felt more surgery was required to a slightly different part of his adductor region. It's a really complicated area to have injuries, which I know from personal experience.

"There's a good level of confidence that this surgery will hopefully be a longer-term resolution and he'll be able to get back to his full health and capabilities, but that's going to be a decent period of time.

"He's had three surgeries now - one at Plymouth and two with us - so it's hard to put an exact timescale on it. It's going to be a few months, not a few weeks. We hope that he'll be back playing football again this season."

Meanwhile, there was plenty of positive news on the injury front regarding other players.

Luke Woolfenden (groin) and Janoi Donacien (ankle) both missed last Saturday's 1-0 defeat at Wycombe, while Richard Keogh (calf) was forced off at half-time leaving a semi-fit George Edmundson (knee) to play the second half.

"Janoi and Luke aren't far away," said McKenna. "Whether they'll be ready for Oxford or not we need to decide over the next couple of days. 

"Richard Keogh has a very, very minor issue in his calf. He's not back training with the group yet but we hope that he'll return over the next few days and will hopefully be available for some of the fixtures over the festive period.

"George has trained well and is feeling better with his knee. He didn't feel too many ill-affects after playing the second half last week."

Lee Evans made his comeback from a knee injury as a second half sub at Adams Park, while Marcus Harness warmed up with the team.

Asked if Evans was ready to start any time soon, McKenna replied with a smile: "Yeah, soon-ish! He's been out for quite a while, but he's a fit boy and he's training well so I'm sure he's going to be ready for a good amount of minutes over this next week.

"Marus is the same. He has trained well with the team now for well over a week so he's in good condition. He'll be ready for minutes over the Christmas games."

McKenna added: "We're getting there. It's been good to have a few more on the grass this week. It's been the first time in a while that we've had a fuller squad. That's been a boost."