PHIL Parkinson has confirmed Josh Vela faces a lengthy lay-off with ankle ligament damage.

The home-grown midfielder was carried off in the 3-2 defeat against Leeds United on Sunday and scans have since revealed no fracture.

Parkinson is reluctant to put a timeframe on Vela’s return until the injury has had some time to settle.

“He’s got damaged ligaments and we’re not going to know for a week or so the extent of that,” he said. “Obviously when a player gets stretchered off it’s not good.”

In other injury news, David Wheater’s lay-off also looks like stretching beyond the weekend.

The defender will seek medical advice to solve a back problem which surfaced in pre-season and has prevented him training at full capacity.

“We’re going to look to get work on David’s back this week and see a specialist,” Parkinson said. “From a staff point of view he probably shouldn’t have played Sunday. He wasn’t right.

“We always analyse ourselves win, lose or draw. And he wasn’t right.

“He is seeing someone tomorrow morning to improve that.”