Moroccan international midfielder Imran Louza is set to miss the first month of the season as he continues to recover from knee surgery.

The 23-year-old went under the knife at the back end of the last campaign and although his recovery has gone without a problem, he is unlikely to feature during August.

“He had the surgery at the end of the season, and I knew that was the situation when I came here,” said head coach Rob Edwards.

“Everything went fine and he’s working at the training ground. I never like putting exact time frames on that sort of thing, but we’re talking weeks rather than months.”

Louza moved to Vicarage Road from Nantes for £9m last summer but had to be patient, starting only one Premier League game before the 4-1 victory over Manchester United in November.

He missed a couple of league games in January while he was helping Morocco reach the quarter-finals of the Africa Cup of Nations, but when he returned, Louza played in 13 consecutive games ending with the 2-1 defeat at Burnley.

• Tom Cleverley has not featured so far in pre-season, although he was at the training ground to watch the game with Bolton.

“He’s just had a bit of a muscular niggle,” said head coach Rob Edwards. “He’s worked really hard over the last few weeks to get himself right and he’s not far away now.”

• Striker Vakoun Bayo was taken ill at half-time during the friendly with Bolton, and had to see a doctor. He was better this morning and should be available for Saturday’s game with Wycombe Wanderers.

• Kiko Femenia missed the trip to Austria and the Bolton friendly as he had travelled back home to Spain to deal with some family issues. He was due to fly back to the UK today (Wednesday).