Shrewsbury Town loan midfielder Joss Labadie today returned to parent club West Bromwich Albion – after injury limited his stay at the Prostar Stadium to just one game.

The 19-year-old suffered a foot injury in training yesterday which is likely to rule him out for a minimum of six weeks.

And that means Labadie, who only signed last Thursday and made his debut in Saturday’s goalless draw with Bradford, will return to the Hawthorns with immediate effect.

“It’s very bad news,” said manager Paul Simpson. “Joss got a fracture of his fifth metatarsal in the last five minutes of training yesterday.

“It was an innocuous thing. He went to close someone down, just planted his foot down and felt it go.

“We sent him for a scan yesterday afternoon and it showed up the fracture. 

“It’s a big blow for us and a big blow for Joss. We had been looking at him since the start of August and I had spoken to West Brom about him.

“The move nearly happened before the last loan window closed and when this window opened, we went back and managed to get something done.

“It’s a blow for him because he was looking forward to his month here and trying to get himself fixed up with a loan for the second half of the season. He had really enjoyed Saturday.”

Labadie suffered a similar injury in pre-season with West Brom, but had shown no signs of a suffering a re-occurrence over the last two months.

Simpson confirmed he may renew his interest in Labadie if a midfielder remains a position he is keen to strengthen when the teenager completes his recovery.

But one of his priorities now is likely to be finding a replacement for Labadie to add further depth to his midfield options over the coming weeks.

Town’s reserve game at Macclesfield tomorrow night has been postponed due to a frozen pitch, but training plans have not been overly-affected.

“We have got good facilities available to us and we have managed to train outside every day so far,” added Simpson.

By James Garrison