Shrewsbury Town defender Zak Jules faces lengthy injury lay-off

The 20-year-old is on loan at League Two Spireites until January and had been a regular fixture for last season's relegated side.

But he tore up to 90 per cent of his hamstring inside the first 10 minutes in the 3-2 defeat to Yeovil on Tuesday night.

The left-sided defender, a signing from Reading in the summer, was stretchered off.

The recovery time has been scheduled at months not weeks, and is likely to last beyond his loan at Chesterfield.

"I'm devastated for Zak but we'll obviously do the best to get him back going and back in the swiftest time possible," Town physio Chris Skitt told ShrewsWeb.

"Having spoken to Zak he was reaching around a striker to toe the ball away - it was really innocuous and he felt the pain come through and was subsequently stretchered off.

"The likelihood is he's going to have to have some surgical intervention, that'll be planned for early next week.

"Then it's a matter of slowly progressing him but it'll be months rather than weeks for Zak.

"More than likely he'll be back with us. It'll go past the loan period so we'll discuss with Chesterfield the immediate treatment but more than likely he'll come back with us.

"The difficulty with hamstrings is that they can be a little bit temperamental in terms of you have to be really steady when progressing them.

"We'll take our time with him, give him a bit of downtime as it were after the operating and we'll build him back up steadily and get him going.

"Yes, it's a setback and it's a shame for the lad but it's also a really good opportunity to build and use Zak Jules effectively and make him stronger, more robust and better for the future."

Meanwhile John McAtee has joined Halesowen Town on a month's loan deal.