BEN Coker is ‘pretty confident’ he will able to return for Southend United’s important clash with Bury this weekend.

The left-back has missed the Shrimpers’ last five matches with a knee problem.

But he is hopeful of being able to line up against the Shakers at Roots Hall.

“At the moment I’m pretty confident that I’ll be able to play on Sunday and obviously I hope that’s going to be the case as well because it’s such a big game,” said Coker.

“It’s feeling alright at the moment and I had a good training session with the fitness coaches yesterday.

“I’ll be joining in training with the rest of the lads today and providing I suffer no reaction from that before Sunday then I’ll be fine to play and raring to go.”

Coker has not featured for Blues since starting the 3-0 win against Oldham Athletic at the beginning of the month.

And he remains frustrated to have been forced onto the sidelines after picking up the problem in training.

“It was obviously disappointing to get the injury, especially at this stage of the season,” said Coker.

“Contact injuries are part and parcel of football though so you just have to keep working hard to get back as quickly as you can and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.

“I’ve always wanted to make sure I’ll play again this season and hopefully that will happen on Sunday.”

The Shrimpers have been beaten in four of the five games since Coker was forced onto the sidelines.

But the defender has stressed the need to remain positive ahead of Sunday’s game with the Shakers which he hopes will be see Blues work their way back into the play-off places.

“After 12 games this season if someone had offered us the chance to be in with a chance of making the play-offs on the final day of the season everyone would have snapped their hands off,” said Coker.

“That’s the way we have to approach it and it means we’re also looking forward to it.

“It’s a big game but we’ve shown in the past few years we can handle the pressure and we need to do it again now.”