Mick McCarthy says he’s unsure about how long midfielder Anthony Wordsworth will be out of action after cracking three vertebrae, partly as no one else at the club has suffered or treated a similar injury in the past. The 24-year-old picked up the knock in an aerial clash with Blackpool keeper Matt Gilks during Saturday’s 1-0 home victory over the Seasiders, his full debut for the club he joined from Colchester in January.

McCarthy said "it’ll be six weeks before [Wordsworth] is doing anything" and admitted that he didn't know how long the midfielder would be out: “Nobody at the club’s ever had an injury like that. Matt Byard the physio’s not seen anybody have an injury like that.

“So, we’ll have to wait and see and it’ll depend how long it takes to heal. He won’t have any surgery, it’ll have to heal naturally.

“He should be coming out [of hospital] today [Monday], but the straightforward answer to that is I don’t know and I don’t think anybody else knows yet [whether he’ll be back this season]. We’ll have to wait and see how it all behaves.”

Wordsworth began Saturday’s game on the left of midfield but McCarthy expects him to play in the centre more regularly, the role he generally occupied at Colchester in recent years: “I think probably in the middle. There’s always been this question mark about him, whether he plays in a two or a three or plays in behind the frontman.

“It’s up to him to grasp that nettle and make sure he finds his position. If it’s in a 4-4-2 then, he’s a good footballer, but he has to do all those horrible jobs as well — tackling, heading, tracking back.

“It looks to me that he wants to do that. So, we’ll see. I haven’t seen that much of him yet.”

Photo: Action Images

Marcus added 16:05 - Feb 19 I had a similar injury in 2003. I slipped on some stairs in a nightclub and landed on my back. Went to hospital a day later and had painkilling injections. Could hardly walk for a month, took over four months for full recovery. As a sportsman in good health with access to constant specialist care at the club Wordsworth should recover much faster. As a guess he might be back on the fringes at the end of the season unless there are further complications. It REALLY hurts, believe me.

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