Wickham has scored six goals in 31 appearances for Ipswich

Ipswich Town boss Roy Keane will resist the urge to throw Connor Wickham back into the starting line-up.

The striker, 17, stepped up his recovery from injury by playing 20 minutes against Portsmouth on Saturday.

Keane told BBC Radio Suffolk: "Everyone should chill out on Connor. As nice as it was to get him on for 20 minutes he is too far behind every other player.

"I think the most minutes Connor will get this week will be Wednesday night in the reserves."

He added: "We don't want to be taking too many chances."

Keane will be sweating on the fitness of Darren O'Dea for Tuesday's clash with top-of-the-table QPR.

606: DEBATE I hope Roy Keane will not feel the need to shoehorn Connor Wickham into the side at any cost. He is still just 17 and as such is far from fully mature physically Happy_Binner

The on-loan Celtic defender took a knock to the knee in the 0-0 draw with Portsmouth and the Town boss rates him 50-50 to play against Neil Warnock's side.

"We've got to be careful we don't take any chances, especially because Darren's on loan," Keane said.

"We've got other options, Mark Kennedy's available, we could always play Tommy Smith and put Damien Delaney back in.

"But that's obviously throwing Damien straight back in so we'll gauge it over the next 24 hours."

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