Wigan Athletic star returns to Liverpool and faces 'months, not weeks' on sidelines after suffering injury KO

The 20-year-old defender was forced to pull out of the England Under-20 squad for their most recent fixtures.

And Latics boss Shaun Maloney delivered a crushing verdict on how long the Preston-born ace will be sidelined for.

"Luke has a back injury, and it doesn't look too good a prognosis," he said. "We got that news yesterday, he's going to be out for a fair period of time. You're not going to see him back on the field for quite a while."

When asked whether the lay-off would be 'weeks', Maloney replied: "It's not weeks, it will be months...into the New Year for sure.

"He won't need an operation, but he will go back to Liverpool tomorrow, they'll take over his rehab. The specialists will get involved and they'll take that over...it's a real shame for him.

"I think there's a bit of history behind it, over the last two or three years...it's not something that's just happened, or an impact injury.

"It's such a shame because he was absolutely flying for us, he's probably been our best player this season.

"We've also got Luke Robinson in that position, but his knee injury has probably taken a bit longer than we expected to heal.

"That's meant we've had to use K'Marni Miller a bit earlier than we thought, but that's football...every team gets injuries.

"It's just that left-back position is so specialised, and has caused us a lot of problems in the last few weeks."