Birmingham City manager Lee Clark has expressed hope that loanee Tom Thorpe will play for the club again, despite suffering an ankle injury on his debut last weekend.

The Manchester United defender has returned to his parent club for treatment on the injury that he picked up in Birmingham's 3-3 draw with Derby County.

Clark is optimistic that Thorpe will return to action for the Blues this season.

"Tom has had an early scan which has shown significant damage to the ankle," Clark told the club's official website.

"There is still quite a lot of swelling there so we can't put a definite timescale on it, but we can say it will be a minimum of four weeks so that will rule out all of February. Potentially it could be longer but we're waiting to hear more news from Manchester United, who are continually assessing him.

"We can't cancel the loan because we have a contract and obligation to Manchester United, but we're hoping the lad can make a speedy recovery because we'd like to keep him if at all possible."

Birmingham travel to Charlton Athletic on Saturday.