Boss Roy Keane could hand Tamás Priskin and Connor Wickham their first Town league starts when the Blues face Crystal Palace at Portman Road this evening (KO 7.45pm). The duo added a greater attacking threat when used from the bench during Saturday’s 0-0 draw with Leicester City.
Keane says that 16-year-old Wickham is well and truly in his plans for a full Championship debut after impressing in pre-season and during the opening three games of 2009/10: "If Jon Stead or any of my other strikers had scored six or seven goals in pre-season and wasn’t starting, he’d probably come and see me.
"If he’d scored a couple in the League Cup and I’d left him out, then I’d be getting a knock at the door, so I’m expecting one from Connor!
"The boy’s doing everything he possibly can. What your players have to do is make a statement to you — can you leave me out of the next game? And Connor’s staked his claim for Tuesday night.”
Priskin has rarely trained with his new team-mates since joining the Blues from Watford 10 days ago, having spent much of last week away with Hungary. However, with the Blues short on goals, manager Keane may choose to utilise two central strikers against Palace, having previously gone with Jon Stead in the centre and Lee Martin and Jon Walters in wide positions.
The Blues boss says he is weighing up his options: "I’ve got a few decisions to make for the Palace game and we certainly need to be more of a goal threat. Having watched Saturday’s game again, we created very little, but that comes down to the team as a whole, not just the strikers.”
Keane admits he would have liked to have seen his side higher up the table in the season’s opening few days: "We would have hoped to have done a touch better, particularly in attacking positions, to have been more of a goal threat.
"We’re a week into the season and as I’ve said before, even when I was a player, it takes six seven games to get that sharpness. But, of course, the sooner the better because we’ve an important game on Tuesday night and even at this early stage of the season we don’t want to be left too far behind in terms of points.”
The Town manager was pleased with his team’s attitude against Leicester: "If anything pleased me on Saturday it was the fact that although it wasn’t a pretty game and we didn’t play particularly well, the players stuck at it and we got a point.
"Sometimes at the end of a season those draws can be important. Put it this way, we would have been delighted with a draw last weekend after going two goals down when we created a number of chances.
"So, as much as I was disappointed with the lack of chances we created this week, you look at the previous week when we created a good eight or nine chances but didn’t take them.
"If we can create the chances against Palace, we’ve got to make sure the players in the attacking positions can take them.”
Keane will be forced into at least one change with Jaime Peters ruled out for around seven to 10 days due to the ankle injury he sustained in the second half of the game against Leicester. Lee Martin is fine after receiving a blow to the leg.
Pablo Couñago (groin), Ben Thatcher (knee), David Norris (knee) and Luciano Civelli (knee) remain on the sidelines, although the Couñago and Thatcher are back in training and are expected to play for the reserves on Wednesday. Norris isn’t likely to play again before Christmas and Civelli isn’t due to return until early 2010.
If Keane switches to 4-4-2, then Colin Healy and Liam Trotter may continue in the centre of the midfield with Alan Quinn perhaps coming in if he sticks with the three, having impressed at Shrewsbury and being a more similar player to Peters than Owen Garvan. Walters and Martin are likely to be the widemen.
The Blues boss says that Quinn was left out of Saturday’s 18 after his 120 minutes at the Prostar Stadium to give him some rest after he missed some of pre-season due to a thigh injury.
At the back, Saturday’s perhaps fortunate clean sheet is likely to be rewarded with Richard Wright, David Wright, Damien Delaney, Gareth McAuley and Pim Balkestein keeping their places.
The Blues boss knows what to expect from Neil Warnock’s side: "We’re looking forward to the game, it’s going to be a difficult one, it always is when you play Crystal Palace, I’ve found that out before. It’ll be a battle, but I’m sure we’ll be sharper than we were on Saturday.”
Palace are reeling after Saturday’s ‘goal that should have been’ against Bristol City with the Football League confirming that the match won’t be replayed.
Manager Neil Warnock wants his side to put that behind them and go looking for their first league win of the season: "What disappoints me is the damage Saturday did to us.
"We're going to see how well we've recovered from it by how we perform on Tuesday night.
"You can only try to lift the players up, but if you'd seen the lads in the dressing room on Saturday they had absolutely gone.
"If we'd won, then after two games we would've been flying - instead we're talking about an incompetent referee."
Warnock says he is a big fan of his Town counterpart: "I really like Roy Keane and I think with them throwing money at it they will not be far away.
"They've got a lot of new players in and they will just push on as the season progresses.
"Roy has done well for the game and he put Sunderland on the map - I don't think they realise quite how much he did for them. He'll be back managing in the Premier League because he's just so motivated."
Prior to Saturday’s 1-0 defeat to Bristol City, the Eagles drew their opening fixture at home to Plymouth. In the Carling Cup, they beat Torquay 2-1.
Palace will be without Stern John, who has an elbow injury, while Darren Ambrose is expected to recover from a shoulder problem.
Town have won the majority of games between the sides over the years, coming off best 29 times (27 in the league), drawing on 23 occasions (23) and with Palace recording 22 wins (22).
Last season, the Blues won 4-1 at Selhurst Park with Owen Garvan, David Norris, Kevin Lisbie and Clint Hill (OG) scoring for Town and Alan Lee for the Eagles.
Earlier in 2008/09, the teams drew 1-1 at Portman Road with Jon Stead netting for the Blues and Victor Moses for Palace.
Alan Lee and Darren Ambrose are the only ex-Blues in Neil Warnock’s squad, while none of the current Town squad have played for Palace.
Issue 98 of the TWTD fanzine will be on sale prior to the game. It features the memories of Sir Bobby Robson’s time with the Blues collected on the site last week.
In addition to the tributes to Sir Bob, Gavin Barber looks at the current rebranding of Town, Roger Hermiston reviews Roy Keane’s 2002 autobiography and Ray Slegg travels to Sweden for the European U21 Championships in amongst most of the usual sort of stuff.
Look out for our sellers by Sir Alf, next to Planet Blue and by the Portman Road entrance to the Greene King Stand.
Single issues, costing £1.50, or six-issue subscriptions from £9.50 are available here.
Tuesday’s referee is Keith Hill from Hertfordshire, who has taken control of two games this season, showing five yellow cards. Last year he showed 64 yellow and two red cards in 19 games, including Town’s 3-0 FA Cup victory over Chesterfield.
Likely squad: R Wright, Supple, Bruce, D Wright, Delaney, McAuley, Balkestein, Smith, Healy, Trotter, Quinn, Garvan, Upson, Colback, Walters, Martin, Stead, Priskin, Wickham.