Town boss Roy Keane looks set to recall full-backs David Wright and Liam Rosenior for the home game against Coventry City on Saturday afternoon. The Blues will be without the suspended Jon Stead and new goalkeeper Brian Murphy, who picked up an ankle injury in the warm-up at Leicester a week ago.
Keane switched his regular full-back pairing for Pim Balkestein and Alex Bruce at the Walkers Stadium to counter the Foxes’ largely aerial threat, but the more attacking Wright and Rosenior are likely to return against the Sky Blues. Alex Bruce picked up a heel injury against Leicester, but has trained all week and will probably be OK to be named amongst the subs.
Gareth McAuley and Damien Delaney are set to continue at the heart of the defence, having helped Town to a run of only one defeat in their last 14 games, with Arran Lee-Barrett continuing in goal.
In midfield, Grant Leadbitter and David Norris appear to be Keane’s favoured central duo with Jack Colback having done well on the left in recent weeks. Skipper Jon Walters will probably be used up front, which should mean Jaime Peters will keep his place on the right.
Keane says Stern John, Tamás Priskin and Connor Wickham — who will also play for the U18s in the FA Youth Cup at Arsenal on Tuesday - are all in contention to start up front, probably alongside Walters. Jon Stead serves the third game of his four-match ban.
The Blues boss, whose squad were due to return to training outside rather than indoors today, says scoring the goals to turn draws into wins is still Town’s main problem: "You look at the goals for column and it will certainly need improving in the second half of the season. The one consolation is that we are creating chances.
"We’re looking more solid at the back and that gives you a chance. Earlier in the season we weren’t giving ourselves a chance and that’s why we had such a bad start.
"We were giving unbelievably bad goals away and we weren’t creating much, but we’re getting it about right now and we need to for the second half of the season or we’ll be down the bottom for the rest of the season.”
Keane says he is concentrating on individual games rather than on league position: "If we focus on getting results, the table will take care of itself. It’s pointless me talking about it and hoping that we achieve something, we need to go and do the business on Saturday.
"It wasn’t a bad result last weekend, although I don’t think we played particularly well in the second half, but I think there’s a lot more to come from the squad. There’s great belief amongst the players. As long as the spirit’s there, we’ve got a chance.”
Keeper Brian Murphy is out for around another week with his ankle injury, while Luciano Civelli has now been ruled out for the season due to the knee ligament damage he suffered last March. Richard Wright is also a long-term absentee with a knee ligament injury but is expected to be ready to make his return before the end of season.
Coventry boss Chris Coleman says midfielder Sammy Clingan and striker Leon Best are both injury concerns ahead of Saturday’s game: "Sammy had blurred vision in one eye after being cleaned out by big Papa Bouba Diop in the 20th minute [of the midweek cup defeat to Portsmouth].
"We thought he might be suffering from mild concussion so we couldn’t take the risk of letting him play on.
"It will be a big blow if he’s not fit for the weekend because he sits in the middle of the park and dictates for us — it’s no coincidence that we’ve been playing well since he returned.
"Leon looks as if he could have pulled a muscle at the top of his thigh so we’ll have to keep our eye on him as well.”
Defenders Ben Turner (ankle) and Jordan Clarke (knee) and midfielder Isaac Osbourne (knee) are all longer term absentees.
The Sky Blues currently sit in 14th place in the table, six places and six points ahead of Town. Coventry have an away record of won three, drawn two and lost seven.
Town have a good record against Coventry over the years, winning 35 games (33 in the league), losing 21 times (19) and with 22 matches (21) ending in draws.
On the final day of last season, Town won 2-1 at Portman Road, Giovani Dos Santos and Pablo Couñago scoring for the Blues and Clinton Morrison on target for Chris Coleman’s men.
Morrison scored both Coventry goals as the Sky Blues beat Town 2-1 on the opening day of this season, Jon Walters netting for Town.
No current Coventry player has appeared for Town, although new midfield signing Gary Deegan, until recently a team-mate of Blues keeper Brian Murphy at Bohemians, was linked with Town in the summer and central defender Richard Wood was also a target before leaving Sheffield Wednesday for Coventry in November.
Keeper Arran Lee-Barrett spent six months at the Ricoh Arena from January 2007, initially on loan from Weymouth, but failed to make a senior appearance. Loanee striker Stern John was with the Sky Blues between 2004 and 2007, while midfielder Colin Healy, who moved on loan to Falkirk earlier in the week, was on loan with the Sky Blues in 2002 when a Celtic player.
Saturday’s referee is Michael Oliver from Northumberland, who at 24 was due to become the youngest ever Premier League referee last week until the Fulham-Portsmouth match was postponed. Oliver, whose father Clive was also a Football League referee, has shown 54 yellow and three red cards in 19 games so far this season.
His last Town game was the 1-0 win at Reading in March when he showed yellow cards to Ben Thatcher and Owen Garvan and no members of the Royals side.
Squad from: Lee-Barrett, McLoughlin, Rosenior, D Wright, Delaney, McAuley, Balkestein, Bruce, Leadbitter, Norris, Colback, Peters, Garvan, Quinn, Martin, Edwards, Walters, Priskin, Wickham, John, Couñago.