Paul Cook says he will do all he can to avoid putting Jack Whatmough back into the first team in a hurry after his knee ligament injury.

But he admits Christian Burgess's injury has left him short of central defensive options.

Whatmough has been out since March but is back in training again. Cook told The News: ‘We wouldn’t want to throw Jack in at the minute, although every day that goes by he gets stronger. If we have to throw him in, we have to throw him in, that’s footie.

'But we wouldn’t want to throw him in, that’s for sure, without him playing some games first. I would say that would be two or three really. Possibly we thought about him going out on loan but at the minute we just wanted to get a couple of weeks under his belt before assessing him.

‘This week we will probably talk more seriously about what we think Jack should be doing. Possibly the January window might have been a case of him looking at going out on loan — but now all of a sudden he might be staying to go into our team. We can’t rush him back, though, not with him out for so long.’

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