SWINDON Town defender Mathieu Baudry has likely seen his season ended by a serious knee injury he picked up in a behind-closed-doors friendly against Newport County last week.

The experienced defender Tweeted on Saturday to say his season, and potentially his career, may have been brought to a premature end due to damaging one of his anterior cruciate ligaments in the 2-1 friendly defeat.

Baudry, who sees his Swindon contract run out in the summer, said: “Not the way I wanted it to end.

“Unfortunately, this week I have done my ACL. So that’s my season finished, and at this stage of my career probably more. But at the moment my focus is on getting better and then we will see what happens.”

Reacting to the news after Saturday’s 0-0 draw with AFC Wimbledon at the County Ground, head coach Scott Lindsey shared his disappointment at seeing another one of his squad suffer a long-term injury.

Lindsey said: “We’re really disappointed. The Newport friendly was a game where we wanted people to get some minutes – Matty being one of them – and then he’s come out with a really horrendous injury, which is really sad.”

In a wide-ranging injury update after Saturday’s game, the Town boss admitted central defender Tom Clayton would be another to miss a significant period with a repeat of an issue which kept him out recently.

“Tom Clayton has got a low grade in his quad, so he’ll be out for a number of weeks – probably six weeks – which is obviously disappointing because he’s been good for us.”

In more optimistic news, Ben Gladwin, Saidou Khan, and Luke Jephcott are not expected to miss much more time and at least one could return for the away fixture against Barrow on Saturday.

Explaining the trio’s respective situations, Lindsey said: “Ben Gladwin has felt a hamstring problem, and it’s really tight still, so we didn’t want to risk him.

“Last season, he played when he felt that way and his hamstring actually went, so we didn’t want to put him in that position again.

“Saidou has his concussion, so we’ll have to go through the protocol properly to make sure we do things right by him and that he’s ready to play next week.

“And Jephcott has got low-grade ankle ligament damage, so he will probably be ready to play next week.

“He pulled out of training on Thursday because it was sore. They are four really big players that were missing for us [against Wimbledon].”