Town manager Roy Keane is hopeful that Sunderland won’t recall loan midfielder Jack Colback from his spell at Portman Road despite the Black Cats suffering a number of injuries. The Blues boss says he has been avoiding calls from Sunderland manager Steve Bruce just in case, however, Bruce himself says he's happy with the 20-year-old remaining at Town.
Asked if he was worried that Colback, who is due to remain with Town until the end of the season, might get called back early, Keane said: "A little bit! I missed a call from Brucey last week, so I avoided calling him back. But I’ve spoken to him and he knows that Jack is playing regularly for us and as much as he’s got injuries, one or two are nearly fit.
"At the moment, fingers crossed, he’s not needed to call him back. But it would be a concern if he were to recall him without a shadow of a doubt, because Jack’s an important player.
"Having said that, he’s not our player and we have to be respectful if Sunderland do want him back. Brucey still has a decent number of players, I know he picked up a few suspensions last week, but fingers crossed he won’t be looking to get Jack back.
"I’m sure he will be looking forward to getting him back at the end of the season, but Jack’s enjoying it, he’s been a big, big plus for us. Good player, good lad, good attitude. He’s got a chance of being a top player.
"But going back to play for Sunderland is a big challenge because there’s such a big gap between the Premiership and the Championship, we all know that.”
Steve Bruce seems happy enough that Colback is getting experience with the Blues: "The last thing I want to do is call them [Colback and Martyn Waghorn, who is on loan at Leicester] back to cover for a week or two weeks.
"We've seen the benefit of Jordan [Henderson] going out on loan last season and I think that will benefit them too."
Colback is one of three players on loan from the Black Cats and Keane admits that it’s not been easy bringing in players from the Premier League, given the money that the likes of Daryl Murphy and David Healy are on at the Stadium of Light: "It’s the wages that are often the issue, not necessarily transfer fees.
"I think the owner’s been pretty good here, not just to me but to the previous manager. When you get players from the Premiership, they’re certainly not on peanuts.
"It’s a balancing act. We want to get in the Premiership, it’ll be very difficult this year, but if we want to do it next year we want to have the right balance to the squad in terms of the right players, the right characters and the right wages.”
Photo: ITFC.