Key Maidstone United defender Jamie Coyle is set to be out for at least a month.

Player-coach Coyle suffered a knee injury during the first half of United's 2-1 defeat at Havant on Saturday.

He hoped to be back in a couple of weeks but physio Paul Smith confirmed medial ligament damage was worse than feared at training on Tuesday night.

Maidstone manager Jay Saunders said: "Coyley's not good to be honest.

"Smudge looked at it and we're talking a minimum of four weeks - if we're lucky.

"I think we're looking at longer. He just made a block tackle and opened up his medial ligaments, similar to Alex Brown earlier in the season.

"He's going to be a big loss. I'm gutted. We'll miss his leadership and experience at the back but Callum Davies and Manny Parry have the shirts now and it's up to them to step up."

Maidstone will wait for the swelling on Coyle's knee to go down before deciding whether to bring in another centre-half.

Saunders said: "We'll stay as we are for now but we haven't got much defensive cover.

"We'll leave it a week to see how the swelling's died down and if it looks like he's going to be out long-term we'll have to look at getting someone in."