Colchester United teenager Milton Oni set for knee surgery

The 18-year-old midfielder is set to have surgery after an MRI scan revealed an Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) rupture, along with a meniscal tear.

Oni will have surgery to reconstruct the ACL, with the graft harvested from the midfielder's quadricep tendon.

U's boss Cowley said: "Off the back of the initial injury disappointment, his mind is in a good place and I have a lot of confidence in him, not just as a player but also as a person.

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"We'll give him all the support we can and we'll be with him every step of the way."

Oni suffered the injury during Colchester's Carabao Cup second-round tie against Brentford on August 28, on his first senior start for the U's.

The young midfielder had impressed in pre-season for the U's and had been a substitute in his two previous appearances for the club, in the opening weeks of the season.

"Football can be a cruel game," said Cowley.

"Milton had a brilliant pre-season and his development is accelerating at the rate of knots.

(Image: STEVE BRADING)

"He makes his first-team debut against Reading, does really well, scores a penalty, makes his league debut on the Saturday, comes on, turns the ball over, creates a goal against Milton Keynes, then plays against a Premier League team in Brentford and does brilliantly and then on 60 minutes, a pretty innocuous challenge.

"He somehow managed to play on for five minutes, which I think says a lot about him and the amount of adrenalin that was in his body at the time.

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"I can only think that it's God's plan - maybe it was just due to happen and he's got all of the tools and all of the attributes to have a really, really good professional career.

"Now we've just got to overcome this next challenge really.

"This is why it's not easy being a professional footballer."