Gillingham were beaten on Saturday but a bigger blow could be the loss of two key players to injury.

Goalkeeper Stuart Nelson suffered a suspected broken thumb in the League 1 defeat at MK Dons while last season’s leading scorer Cody McDonald was stretchered off with a knee injury.

Both will undergo scans to access the seriousness of their injuries but Gills boss Peter Taylor will be hoping neither player is out for long.

Nelson was the club’s player of the year last season while McDonald – who hit 17 goals during the previous campaign – showed his quality with a goal after just seven minutes on Saturday.

Nelson was the first to depart on Saturday, being replaced at half-time.

Taylor said: “He was in pain at half-time and we had to take him off, simple as that. He might have broken his thumb and we are going to have an x-ray on him.”

McDonald went off shortly after the restart. He had scored a goal and won a penalty, and was proving a big threat for the visitors.

“It looks as though he has twisted his knee,” said Taylor. “It wasn’t actually a kick on it, it was when he was going over. It was a foul on him but it wasn’t the contact on his knee, it was a twist.

“We will have to wait and see on him. At the moment he has got strapping on it and I am sure he will be scanned. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that it’s not long term.”

Read the full story plus pictures and more reaction from the MK Dons game in Monday's Medway Messenger