Town are set to hand new signing David Wright his debut at Sunderland on Saturday. Full-back Wright signed a three-and-a-half-year deal on Thursday after the Blues and Wigan agreed an undisclosed fee thought to be in the region of £200,000.
The former Crewe man, who has been handed the number 20 shirt, will come into the side at right-back with Alex Bruce in contention for the central defensive berth alongside Jason De Vos, which he occupied earlier in the season.
Bruce faces stiff competition from Richard Naylor, who has impressed in recent weeks as Town racked up back-to-back clean sheets against Birmingham and Chester. Dan Harding is over a bruised foot sustained at the Deva Stadium last week and will take up his usual position at left-back.
Lewis Price is expected to return in goal after being rested at Chester last week due to a minor strain, with Shane Supple dropping to sub.
In midfield, Gavin Williams has been left on the bench for recent games as his groin injury continues to cause him problems and could again miss out on a place in the starting 11.
Gary Roberts, Sylvain Legwinski, Owen Garvan and Matt Richards are once again the likely starters, despite the poor performance at Chester last week. Martin Brittain and Darren Currie are named in the squad as cover, but are unlikely to start.
Up front, Alan Lee will be partnered by either Billy Clarke or Danny Haynes with the latter the more impressive in the reserves victory over the MK Dons earlier in the week and making a real difference from the bench at Chester a week ago. Haynes has looked more comfortable than his former academy colleague when switched to a wide right role when the Blues have moved to a 4-5-1 formation as they have in a number of recent games.
Magilton takes his side to the Stadium of Light looking for the Blues' second double of the season, Town having handed Roy Keane the first defeat of his managerial career in a close match at Portman Road back in September: "It was a good, competitive game at our place and on the balance of play I'm sure Roy would have felt a bit hard done by after our 3-1 win.
"Two mistakes cost them in the end but they were in it right to the death and it could well have gone a different way. He has improved his squad since then, bringing in more of his own men.
"But at the same time we have been better away from home in the league and in my view we played quite well at both Coventry and West Brom. We got three points from the two games but I felt we deserved a little bit more than that.”
Magilton and Keane fell out in November after the Blues pulled out of a loan deal for Tommy Miller at the last moment, but the Town manager insists that this has since been sorted out.
Keane says he has had good and bad news regarding his players' fitness: "Nuggsy [Nyron Nosworthy] trained yesterday and he will be in contention on Saturday.
"Stan Varga hasn't trained this week, he has a slight groin problem so he is a doubt; it's good to have Nuggsy and Danny Collins back."
Keane, who is also without defenders Stephen Caldwell (thigh), Stephen Wright (ankle) and Kenny Cunningham (knee), is expected to give debuts to new signings Anthony Stokes, Carlos Edwards and Jonny Evans. Midfielder Liam Miller misses out due to a one-match ban, while key man Graham Kavanagh is a long-term absentee having undergone a knee operation last week.
The Sunderland boss says his side cannot afford to lose many more games if they are to make a serious challenge this season: "Any more defeats are going to be very difficult to make up.
"You are going to have set-backs and disappointments in football, but we need to be focused now; we have 19 games left and we need to try to win as many as possible. If we're not to win games, we've got to make sure we're not losing them.
"We've had one or two disappointments and one of them was at Ipswich, we gave some bad goals away. Another was at Preston in the League when we lost 4-1.
"We can't afford any more slip-ups like these, giving two or three sloppy goals away. If you do that, you're going to get nowhere as a team."
Town are yet to win at the Stadium of Light, having lost their last six games there after a 2-2 draw in their first match at Sunderland's current home in 1997. Boss Jim Magilton made his Town debut in a January 1999 2-1 loss as he began a loan spell from Sheffield Wednesday which ended with his £682,500 permanent move to Portman Road.
Saturday's referee is Premiership official Lee Mason from Lancashire, who has shown 46 yellow and three red cards in 19 games this season. Mason's last Town game was the 3-1 victory at QPR in August when he awarded the Blues a penalty and kept his cards in his pocket throughout.
Squad: Brittain, Bruce, Clarke, Currie, De Vos, Garvan, Harding, Haynes, Lee, Legwinski, Naylor, Peters, Price, Richards, Roberts, Supple, Williams, Wright.