JACOB OGDEN is set to miss Sunday trip's to Widnes Vikings (3pm) through a suspected ankle ligament problem while York City Knights' injured-quartet also remain unavailable.

Ogden suffered a cruel blow during York's 36-34 victory over London Broncos on Sunday, leaving the field hurt during the first half in what was his first game for almost a month after a previous concussion issue.

The Knights centre is now expected to sit out of his side's visit to Widnes in the Betfred Championship this weekend.

“Oggy’s x-ray came back clear but he’s still really sore, so we suspect it’s an ankle ligament injury," reported head coach James Ford.

“He’s going for a scan tomorrow, so we hope we’ll get the information on the scan either on Monday or Tuesday.”

Ford remains without injured players Brendan O'Hagan (hamstring), Levi Edwards (unspecified), Ronan Michael (ankle) and Will Oakes (groin), none of whom took part in last week's wins over Sheffield Eagles and London.

“Levi, Brendan and Ronan will miss this week but I’m exceedingly confident that they’ll be available for Whitehaven (on Sunday, June 26), which is a great boost," the coach enthused.

“We’ll be well into the second half of the season by then and it’ll almost be like having three new quality players coming back into the squad."

On Oakes' chances of featuring at Whitehaven, Ford added: “Probably and hopefully. He’s had infection so we’re seeing how he is.

"Will’s a key player for us and everyone knows that I like what Will brings and I think he’s really hard to handle.

“It’s the same story with O’Hagan, Michael and Edwards. We want to get them back but we want them back and firing on all cylinders for the business end of the season.

“What we don’t want to do is bring Will back now and irritate his condition. It’s frustrating that we can’t have him now but we’ve got to take the sensible approaches around all of our injuries.”

York suffered several injury issues throughout the 2021 season in a year plagued by makeshift players in various positions, though most crucially in the halves.

While conscious of last year's experience, Ford says that he also learnt plenty from the successful 2019 campaign when it comes to managing his squad.

“There wasn’t a lot we could have done last year because we just weren’t at the levels we needed to be at," he reflected.

“I’ve probably learnt from 2019 more, when we played Graeme Horne, Ben Cockayne, Tim Spears and others into the ground to get that third-placed finish.

“By the time the play-offs came round, we didn’t have a lot left.

“We want to finish as high as we can and we’re going to have to play well to do that because there’s some quality teams in this division.

“But I’m mindful of making sure that, once we get some breathing room in the play-offs, we get as many ready as we can, whether that be through game time or rest, to give it our best shot.”

While without six players through injury for the Widnes clash, York will be boosted by the returns of forwards Masi Matongo, Ronan Dixon, Jack Teanby, Will Jubb and winger Joe Brown, all of whom were rotated out at the weekend.

“The lads that I rested, they’ll be fine," said Ford. "They last played on Thursday so they’ve had more rest than usual and they’ve had a good week of training so far."

On those that played twice in the space of four days last week, he continued: “We did the sensible thing in training. The players that doubled up didn’t go on the field on Tuesday and the lads who played once or played low minutes did what they would usually do.”