Colchester United club captain Luke Prosser is hoping a steroid injection will allow him to step up his injury comeback this month.

The experienced defender, who has been sidelined for nearly 12 months, has undergone two operations on a knee injury but is hoping there is now light at the end of the tunnel in his recovery.

Prosser faces an anxious wait to see if the injection he underwent last week will relieve the pain he has been getting in his knee and allow him to step up training, with a view to a long-awaited first-team return.

But the 29-year-old knows that if it does not work, he could have to wait until early next year to resume playing.

Prosser told the Daily Gazette: “Since my second op (in July), they said it could be up to 12 weeks before I came back. I’m not at that mark yet but I was still getting the pain I was getting previously.

“I was wondering why I was still getting that pain so I had another X-ray and he said it could be what’s called the fat pad, behind the knee cap.

“They’ve injected that with a steroid and hopefully, that will take the pressure off the knee when I’m running.

“If that doesn’t happen, they’ll be a bit deeper in my knee cap and it could take another 12 weeks.

“That’s a long time and we’d be looking at January to play.

“It takes two to three weeks for the injection to kick in and at the moment, I’m sort of sitting on my hands hoping in that around a fortnight’s time, I’ll be a lot better.

“I might go out next week just to test it a little bit, to see if it’s worked.”

It has been a hugely frustrating 11 months for Prosser, who had been a regular in Colchester’s starting line-up in the opening three months of last season after joining them from Southend United.

He said: “It is frustrating but when I’m back, I want to be back properly.

“It’s alright saying I’ll play through the pain but if that means that I’ll pull out in a month’s time, it’s not worth it.

“The best case scenario is I’ll be out running again next week getting fit and the worse-case scenario would be a January return but we’ll have to wait and see.

“At 29, you don’t have as much time as a 21-year-old but I have got to think longer term as hopefully, I’ll have another five or six years of playing football - I just want it right now and hopefully, the injection will work.”