Summer signing Jason De Vos has been forced to drop out of the Canada squad facing Guatemala on Wednesday after an x-ray showed a stress fracture of the tibia. The injury, discovered after the 30-year-old broke down in training with Frank Yallop's squad, could see the former Wigan man miss a number of Town matches.

De Vos is flying back from Vancouver and manager Joe Royle says his condition will be assessed on his return to Portman Road: "This is obviously a blow, but we will know a lot more once we get Jason back and our medical people have a look at him.

"He will be going for a scan and we will be governed by what the specialist says. He might advise Jason to rest for two weeks or as long as a month.

"On the other hand, he has already played two games with this injury and I have known cases of players playing through an injury of this type and only realising they had it when they are x-rayed to do with another problem.

"We were confident there was no break, but we are now being told from Canada that he has a very small stress fracture of the tibia just below the knee."

De Vos picked up in the injury in the friendly with Osasuna when he was on the wrong end of a heavy challenge late on.

Despite the knock, he has managed to play in all Town's league games so far.

With Town's squad thin, Royle will hope that England U21 trio Darren Bent, Matt Richards and Ian Westlake and Welsh U21 call Lewis Price return to Portman Road without further injury problems.

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