Shrewsbury Town facing wait over Stefan Payne injury
Shrewsbury Town are holding their breath over the fitness of Stefan Payne following the striker's debut disappointment.
The 25-year-old was sent for an initial scan on Saturday during Town's 2-1 victory over Bury after being forced off inside 10 minutes.
The X-ray showed little sign of serious damage as Salop feared the on-loan Barnsley man may have suffered a repeat of his broken metatarsal.
But Town will continue monitoring Payne at Greenhous Meadow, as physio Chris Skitt explained the injury – which kept him out for a number of weeks earlier in the campaign – can take days to surface.
"Unfortunately the way metatarsals are, they don't show brilliantly straight away in an X-ray and it's often a couple of days later when you start to see the forming of the break," said Skitt.
"There wasn't a break showing in his metatarsal on the first X-ray taken during the game.
"He'll be carefully monitored and we'll see how it reacts in the next 24 or 48 hours and take the lead from there."
Hurst said post-match that the 'fear' was a repeat of his Barnsley injury, which could potentially sideline the London-born hitman for the majority of his loan spell.
Having signed from non-league Dover in the summer – where he scored 40 goals in 90 games – Payne had been catching the eye at Oakwell, making an impact from the bench in the early weeks of the campaign.
But after coming on as a sub during the Tykes' 4-0 rout of Rotherham, Payne lasted just three minutes before picking up a metatarsal injury that sidelined him for four months.
Skitt added: "They're complicated things, metatarsals.
"The blood flow to the area isn't brilliant and they don't tend to fracture massively, just have a little crack in them – which is equally dangerous.
"Often you don't see that it's broken until the callus around the edge of the bone starts to form, which is why a load of people have had metatarsal injuries in the past.
"It's why I tend to play it slower and not get too ecstatic over one X-ray result."
Hurst had said he'd completed his attacking business before capturing Payne on the penultimate day of the January window.
But after missing out on a winger on deadline day – the boss admitted his side would have been one man light without the forward.
