Michael Turner will be out for a 'number of weeks' after damaging his hamstring in Norwich City's festive campaign.

The Canaries' centre back suffered the injury in a windswept New Year's Day's Premier League 1-1 draw at Crystal Palace. Hughton was foreced to deploy Russell Martin alongside Ryan Bennett for the recent FA Cup tie against Fulham but Sebastien Bassong will return for the trip to Everton. Jonny Howson, however, is ruled out for a sixth consecutive game with a back complaint.

'At the moment he is relatively pain-free but he needs to be in a situation that it settles down to such a degree that he can push on and get back into the swing of it,' said Hughton. 'Once that happens it should be quite a swift process, Jonny is a young man who is not used to being injured. Yes, it has dragged on a little bit longer than we would have liked but we now have to be prepared to let it settle down completely. He is not in pain but at this moment he is not quite pain-free.

'Seb and Brad Johnson are back after missing Fulham along with Wes (Hoolahan) so we're in a better position than we have been for a while. Unfortunately Michael is out with a hamstring pull and it will be a matter of weeks because it is a significant pull and we will have to keep assessing that.'

Hughton was able to deliver more upbeat news on the progress of both Alex Tettey and Anthony Pilkington, with both on the verge of re-joining full training.

'Anthony and Alex did part of the training on Thursday and we expect them to be back fully with us on Monday,' he said. 'The Fulham replay would probably be too soon which is a shame because that would have been an ideal opportunity but with a good week behind them we'll see about the Hull squad. Alex joined in with the Under-21 group on Wednesday and Anthony joined in a little bit with us on Thursday so they will look to train fully Monday.'