Dunfermline Athletic forward Kevin O’Hara is facing around two months on the sidelines with a knee injury.
The forward picked up a knock ahead of the win at Queen of the South but played and came through it relatively unscathed.
The following week he was reported fit ahead of the visit of Falkirk but turned up for the game in a knee brace.
“He is still in a brace and away at the minute for a few days off,” said McPake ahead of this weekend’s visit of Peterhead.
“He will probably be three to four weeks in the brace and then we will start his rehab.
Good news from the surgeon
“It is a disappointing one for him personally because he has been excellent – his work rate, his desire to train and play the way that we have asked him has been great.
“We got pretty good news from the surgeon. Come December time we will get him back hopefully.”
Dunfermline had another free Saturday last week after their SPFL Trust Trophy tie versus Celtic B was postponed.
The Pars boss used the free weekend to get a few other players back up to speed, including giving Craig Wighton minutes in the reserves’ win over Livingston.
“Craig Wighton got 65 minutes, Chris Hamilton played – but the beauty of the Celtic B game being off was that we could expose some of them to playing in the game.
“We had a couple of days off but it allowed Joe Chalmers to recover from a bit of a dead leg,” said McPake.
“He would have been fine but it just gave us the extra security to fix that.
Paul Allan update
“[It meant] we could step Craig Wighton up later on in the week in training when otherwise we would have been tapering down to the game.
“So he has had another week in terms of fitness work with the ball.
“You want to play, of course you do but you make the most of it when you don’t.”
The only other player out of action is Paul Allan who is now out of his moon boot and has “started upping his rehab”.
Conversation