Wigan Athletic star rocked by six-week injury KO

The former Arsenal man, who turned 23 on Thursday, had been playing through the pain barrier before being taken out of the firing line last weekend.

And the Latics boss revealed surgery will be required to correct the abdominal injury.

"Matt will be out for around six weeks," said Maloney.

"He is booked in for surgery next week, so that's not good news.

"He was struggling with his stomach, I'm not sure how these injuries come about.

"You saw in the performances against Derby, Carlisle, Bolton, he was the perfect sort of No.6 or No.8 I wanted this summer.

"But I think in the last couple of weeks you also saw that he was starting to struggle to have an impact in the games.

"It wasn't the same Matt Smith we'd seen in the first five or six games, and we need to give him time to recover."

As one door closes, another one opens, with Liam Shaw making an impressive first league appearance at Burton in midweek.

"Matt will be a big loss," acknowledged Maloney. "But we have other players waiting to step up, and that's why we have a squad that we've tried to build.

"We have James Balagizi and Liam, who did well in midweek, and Scott Smith who did well in the previous game.

"And we've already relied really much on Baba who, two days before the Derby game, I knew was ready to be a first-team player.

"All of a sudden he's in the team for every single game, and this is the moment we see others make that step up."

Maloney also provided an update on centre-back Jason Kerr, who has been out for almost a year since picking up a serious knee injury at Swansea last November.

"Jason is only doing certain parts of training, he's not back to full training yet," Maloney added.

"And I really want to keep the pressure off Jason, who's been out for so long, we're going to have to give him a period of four-to-six weeks just training with the group before we build up his matches.

"If we see him at any point in December, it will be a massive, massive bonus.

"I know he will come to me and want things to be progressing quicker, but it's been such a long time that we won’t rush it.

"It's just been good to have him here and around the group.

"I know what he did in Scotland before he came here, he had an historic season in Scotland with St Johnstone.

"He's desperate to be back competing, and the more people you have like that, the better it is."