Colchester's Oni sidelined by serious knee injury

Milton Oni spent part of last season on loan at non-league Maldon & Tiptree

Colchester United midfielder Milton Oni will be out of action for "several months" because of a serious knee injury.

The 18-year-old suffered a ruptured ACL and torn medial meniscus after being tackled during their Carabao Cup game against Brentford on 28 August, which the Premier League side won 1-0.

Oni was making his first senior start for the U's, having been a substitute in his two previous appearances this season.

"Football can be a cruel game. He had a brilliant pre-season, his development accelerated at a rate of knots," boss Danny Cowley told BBC Essex Sport.

"He makes his league debut on the Saturday, comes on and creates a goal against Milton Keynes, and then on Wednesday plays against a Premier League team and does brilliantly.

"On 60 minutes, [there is] a pretty innocuous challenge, he somehow managed to play on for five minutes, which says a lot about him and the amount of adrenalin in his body at the time."

Oni will now see a knee specialist and physio Hayden Clifton added: "It's important at this time that we have a positive outlook on the injury and the road ahead."

Colchester have a home game against Bromley on Saturday.