Giving the lowdown on the fitness situation, he says:
"The injuries are progressing okay; Christian has gone away for a week of recuperation following his surgery and being with us for two weeks after the operation to allow the initial swelling to go down and to make sure there was no infection with the knee.
"He has had the outside part of the lateral meniscus trimmed and there was also a small area of degenerative change on the joint which has been treated.
"We expect, because of the joint surface injury, that he will be out for up to three months.
"We will be guided by his symptoms and swelling but that would be usual for this sort of injury; it is not just a normal meniscal operation done through keyhole surgery, the surface component of it puts a whole new perspective on the recovery time."
As for fellow centre half Andy Melville, the news is somewhat better, and John explains:
"Andy has recovered to a large extent from his hamstring problem to the point where he was able to join up with the Welsh squad.
"We have been in touch with their physio during the week and he has been training comfortably with them; as long as he doesn't have any setbacks while he is playing we will hopefully get him back next Thursday available to play.
"The idea of letting him go was that the quality of games will be good ones compared with the reserve games here."
There is good news too, for Bobby Zamora, and John adds:
"Bobby is progressing well; it is 17 days since he sprained his medial ligament in training during a shooting session.
"He is possibly going to be available for the weekend of the Sheffield United game but that final stage is really important in that they have to have the confidence to receive, trap, and control the ball without the ligament feeling it is inhibited in any way.
"But it is possible that it is more appropriate for him to be available for Ipswich so we are analysing that daily and are pushing him accordingly."
As for Don Hutchison, John says:
"Don has had a problem with swelling following the pre-season jaunt to Sweden and we decided to back off his training fully.
"He had the fluid drained off the knee with a needle and a steroid into the knee to decrease inflammation at the source of the problem.
"That has the effect of calming down the internal environment around the knee sufficiently to stop too much swelling around the knee joint.
"The joint has stayed fairly dry and we are gradually building up his running.
"We will probably be looking for him to train in two or three weeks' time; he has done two runs this week and we will increase that to three next week - of a more intense nature.
"Hopefully the week after he will have some involvement in football training."