Ipswich Town manager Mick McCarthy will tread carefully with Blues starlet Teddy Bishop, as the 20-year-old continues his recovery from a long-term injury lay-off.

The Town academy player has made two league starts for Town this season, equalling his total for the whole of the last campaign, having been out with hamstring and shin problems.

When fully-fit, Bishop should make a big impact for Town, having starred in his debut campaign in 2014-15, helping the Blues reach the Championship play-offs.

However, McCarthy does not want to rush the Cambridgeshire-born midfielder back and, after playing at Wolves, started with Bishop on the bench for the recent home games with Norwich and Preston.

McCarthy, who also has Kevin Bru and Jonathan Douglas at his disposal, with Cole Skuse an almost certain starter, said: “He’s been out for 12 months, just about, and just playing week in, week out he finds difficult at the moment.

“He’s not being wrapped in cotton wool, it’s just getting his endurance back. Bish wasn’t out with a cruciate ligament where we could all go, ‘Wasn’t he unlucky?’ or a double fracture or something, it was all these different injuries that took their toll on him.

“It’s really difficult then, you come back and what I don’t want is him ending up injured through playing loads of games, so we want to get the best out of him.”

Town return to action, following the international break, on Friday night, when they travel to Reading in a game televised by Sky Sports.

They will be hoping for better luck this time round as last season, their trip to Berkshire which was also a Friday night TV game, ended in a 5-1 defeat.