Hartlepool United striker Luke James's scan results revealed –  and it's bad news!

The potentially season-ending problem arose in the midweek FA Cup replay win over Exeter.

And the club have confirmed scan results make for grim reading.

“I’m gutted for Luke more than anyone,” said Pools boss Dave Challinor.

“I thought he would be an integral part of us being successful, so it’s really bad news.

“If that comes before the end of the season then great, but if not then he should know that he’s still a big part of my plans.”

James may well require an operation to fix the issue, but Challinor is trying to remain positive.

He said: “As daft as it sounds, as the door shuts for one player it opens for someone else and we’ve enough here to give people that opportunity.

“We’ll have to make an assessment pretty quickly as to whether we go with what we’ve got or whether we need to add but it’s certainly not given us reason to panic or rush in to anything.

“If things become available in the next day, week or month then we’ll look at where we are.”

For this weekend’s trip to Harrogate Town, Pools will also be without Gavan Holohan (back), Luke Williams (hamstring) and Luke Molyneux (foot) though are hopeful Peter Kioso (concussion) and Aaron Cunningham (knee) will be back in contention.

“Gav Holohan, because of the 3G surface won’t be risked with his back because we don’t want to set him back,” said Challinor.

“Aaron Cunningham and Peter Kioso have trained and could potentially be back for Saturday.

“We hope they get through today and tomorrow then it’s a question of do we risk them? They’re back into the fray whether they play or not.

“Luke Molyneux isn’t as far on as we’d hoped, in terms of him coming back, this weekend was his initial return date.

“But once I’d seen him on the grass, it’s difficult to put timescales on things but I straight away didn't think we’d see Luke back and ready to play certainly until the end of January now just due to the time he’s been out.”