Shrewsbury playing waiting game

The injury to the forward leaves Town with only three out-and-out strikers currently in Shropshire, and one of those is Max Mata, who is regularly called up to play for New Zealand.

That leaves them with just Ryan Bowman and Dan Udoh, and coach Matt Taylor says it is still early days for the club to decide if they need to look at it in January.

“I don’t know, I will be brutally honest with you I have not even thought that far ahead,” the head coach said when asked if Town will look to replace him.

“We had a recruitment meeting on Monday, about possibilities and areas of the pitch where we feel we need to strengthen and areas of the pitch where we feel we are happy.

“To give you a definitive answer, I cannot at the moment because I do not know what it looks like.

“Kieran might be ahead of schedule, we might see him back here. But as it looks at the moment I would air on the side of we won’t (see him back at Shrewsbury before Christmas).

“It is a tough one as I have full belief in a fully fit Kieran. This is not a re-occurrence of the injury he had last season.

“It is a new injury that nobody saw coming so it is really difficult to deal with.”

The next international break is two weeks away and the Kiwis take on Ireland and Greece which will leave Salop light in forward areas again.

Taylor said: “We are short when Max goes away, for sure.

“Having said that, if you look at the beginning of the season we only had Dan (Udoh) and Ryan (Bowman) that were available.

“This injury was unforeseen, so we have to play the hand we have been dealt.

“There is no point moaning about the situation that we are in, the one thing that we have to do is to make the players that are at the top of the pitch better.

“That is my job and it is the coach’s job.”